Key facts
- Taiwan hosted seven foreign lawmakers and two Taiwanese parliamentarians on a Coast Guard ship.
- The trip occurred in waters around Taiwan-controlled Kinmen islands, near the Chinese coast.
- China has been conducting regular Coast Guard patrols in these waters since 2024.
- The lawmakers were members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.
- Taiwan aims to highlight the pressure it faces from China's maritime activities.
Taiwan's government hosted a group of foreign lawmakers on a Coast Guard vessel near Chinese waters, an effort to draw international attention to China's increasing maritime patrols. The 90-minute tour aboard the PP-10081 patrol ship around the Kinmen islands, which face China's coast, underscored Taiwan's attempts to highlight the pressure it faces from Beijing.
China views Taiwan as its territory and has been conducting regular Coast Guard patrols in waters around Kinmen since 2024, a move that has angered Taipei. The lawmakers, including members from Britain, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, India, and New Zealand, are part of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. They were on a trip organized by Taiwan's foreign ministry and the Ocean Affairs Council.
British lawmaker Tom Tugendhat stated that being in Taiwanese waters was an important show of support for Taiwan and defended the international rules-based system. Ukrainian lawmaker Yulia Sirko drew parallels between Taiwan's situation with China and the war in Ukraine, emphasizing the need for preparedness. Taiwan has controlled the Kinmen islands since 1949, and while its Coast Guard generally engages in verbal sparring with Chinese ships, China's patrols have become more frequent.
Taiwan's Coast Guard hopes the trip will help the international community understand the pressure Taiwan faces from the Chinese Communist Party. Chinese Coast Guard ships did not appear during the lawmakers' tour, but had entered Kinmen waters the previous day.