Taiwan expels Chinese coast guard ships after tense waters standoff

Taiwan’s coast guard said it forced four Chinese government vessels out of restricted waters off the island’s south after a tense standoff that featured sharp radio warnings and a quick buildup of seven Taiwanese ships. The Chinese vessels, including three coast guard ships, had entered waters about 30 nautical miles southwest of Taiwan’s southern tip before being expelled by late afternoon, Taiwan said.

Taipei later identified the ships as Haixun 06, Haixun 08, Haixun 09 and Donghai Rescue 113. The encounter mattered less for its scale than for what it revealed: Beijing can push into contested waters with coast guard and government vessels, not only naval ships, and force Taiwan to decide how far it will go in response.

The episode followed a separate Chinese coast guard patrol on June 1 in waters east of Taiwan, led by CCGS Daishan and framed by Beijing as a law-enforcement operation. China said that patrol responded to Japan and the Philippines announcing talks on maritime delimitation and an intelligence-sharing pact, a move Beijing publicly opposed. Taiwan’s coast guard and the Ocean Affairs Council said at the time that the Chinese vessels did not enter Taiwan’s restricted waters and that normal maritime traffic continued.

On June 7, Taiwan said the four vessels that moved near its southern waters did cross into restricted waters, and it released audio from the confrontation. In that exchange, a Chinese officer insisted the waters were under Chinese jurisdiction, while a Taiwanese officer replied that China had no sovereign rights there. The language was stark, but so were the stakes: each encounter becomes a test of legal claims, deterrence and political resolve in a region already strained by South China Sea disputes and rising concern over miscalculation.

Taiwan has been watching a broader pattern of pressure. In May, it warned about the Chinese research ship Tongji operating near Taiwan, and it said Chinese coast guard ships and a survey vessel recently carried out a coordinated operation near the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands, also known as Dongsha Islands. Taiwan’s defense minister, Wellington Koo, later called the east-of-Taiwan coast guard activity a “provocative act” and said the military would closely coordinate with the coast guard. For Taipei, the latest standoff showed how Beijing uses maritime gray-zone tactics to probe responses, normalize incursions and keep sovereignty disputes alive without firing a shot.