Taiwan Drives Away 16 Chinese Ships Near Pratas

On October 18, Taiwan's coast guard drove away 16 Chinese ships that closed on the island's coasts and the Pratas Islands simultaneously. The ships included coast guard, research and fishing boats. Four of the sixteen were fishing boats.

Taiwan's coast guard called the day's activity "hybrid warfare." In a statement, the agency said China was "attempting to unilaterally alter the status quo across the Taiwan Strait" and that Taiwan's forces "took forceful action immediately to effectively neutralise the threats." Operations covered waters off Taiwan's eastern, southern and southwestern coasts and the Pratas Islands, a group of small reefs Taiwan administers to its southwest that China also claims.

Two Chinese coast guard ships, numbered 3301 and 3303, entered restricted waters around Pratas, according to the Taipei Times. The paper said it was the eleventh expulsion operation Taiwan had carried out at Dongsha this year, with 14 ship encounters in total across those operations.

The confrontation follows months of escalating Chinese maritime pressure. On October 1, Taiwan's coast guard fired a water cannon at a Chinese recreational fishing boat near Pratas. Beijing responded angrily. In July, China deployed a record 244 coast guard, research and other ships around Taiwan's main island, up from 55 in June. By the first 21 days of August, 152 ships had been counted, roughly 60 percent of them coast guard ships.

No casualties were reported from the October 18 operations. Beijing had not publicly commented as of the time of reporting. China asserts sovereignty over Taiwan and the surrounding waters. Taiwan rejects those claims.

Elsewhere in the region, Manila's coast guard detected a Chinese research vessel broadcasting false AIS positions in the Philippine EEZ near Batanes in late September.