By Yimou Lee, Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina<\/p>\n
TAIPEI\/WASHINGTON June 24 (Reuters) – The United States, Britain, France and Germany raised the alarm on Wednesday over recent Chinese activities off the east coast of Taiwan, where \u200cChina has mounted Coast Guard patrols, saying they threaten regional stability and freedom of navigation.<\/p>\n
China, which views democratically \u200cgoverned Taiwan as its own territory, sent Coast Guard ships earlier in June into the waters off the island’s east coast for what it called \u200ba “special maritime traffic law-enforcement operation,” angering Taipei.<\/p>\n
China said the operation was in response to an announcement by Japan and the Philippines that they would begin formal talks on their maritime boundaries, which Beijing viewed as involving Chinese waters off Taiwan.<\/p>\n
China has also been sending maritime survey ships into the same waters.<\/p>\n
“China’s actions are deeply destabilizing,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said regarding reports that Chinese \u200cCoast Guard vessels were harassing commercial ships.<\/p>\n
“We \u2060reject any assertion by China of authority to interfere with freedoms of navigation or overflight, the freedom to lay cables, or other lawful uses of the sea,” the U.S. official said, adding \u2060that Beijing was undermining the peaceful resolution of issues that it claims to seek.<\/p>\n
The de facto British, French and German embassies in Taipei said in a separate but rare joint statement that the Chinese activity was concerning.<\/p>\n
“These actions threaten regional stability and the freedom of \u200bnavigation \u200band safety of international shipping. We reiterate our opposition to any \u200bunilateral change to the status quo, particularly by threat \u200cor use of force or coercion,” they said.<\/p>\n
“It is fundamental that all navigational rights and freedoms and the safety of seafarers and vessels are guaranteed and respected.”<\/p>\n
China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The U.S., Britain, France and Germany, like most countries, have no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan. But like many Western countries, they have repeatedly voiced concern at Chinese pressure against Taiwan, whose government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.<\/p>\n
MERCHANT SHIPS ‘HARASSED’<\/p>\n
Taiwan says the waters off its east coast \u200care not China’s and that Beijing has no right to claim any \u200bsort of jurisdiction.<\/p>\n
China said the Coast Guard patrol had inspected 198 passing \u200bvessels and “rectified violations” involving three ships, carried out a \u200bhydrographic survey and patrolled areas where undersea cables are located.<\/p>\n
Taiwan has said that three passing merchant \u200cships in the area were “harassed” by the Chinese \u200bCoast Guard, which asked them for \u200binformation about their points of origin and destination and claimed jurisdiction.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters in Beijing earlier on Wednesday, Zhang Han, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said the waters Japan and the Philippines were seeking to \u200bdelineate were China’s exclusive economic zone.<\/p>\n
She said \u200cthe patrols were lawful, legitimate and necessary and that they constituted a just action to “safeguard national sovereignty and \u200bmaritime rights and interests.”<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard in Taipei and Michael Martina in Washington; \u200bEditing by Christian Schmollinger, Milla Nissi-Prussak, David Dolan, Rod Nickel)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Yimou Lee, Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina TAIPEI\/WASHINGTON June 24 (Reuters) – The United States, Britain, France…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3527,1165,28162,5,6289,5153,28163,1099],"class_list":["post-40956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-beijing","tag-china","tag-coast-guard","tag-france","tag-france-and-germany","tag-freedom-of-navigation","tag-state-department-spokesperson","tag-taiwan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}