Kinmen incident by Professor Ling-chi Wang, UC Berkeley 1/22/24

After one week of select and conflicting news leaks in only select media outlets in Taiwan, a fuller picture of the deadly incident off the coast of Jinmen (Kinmen) is slowly emerging. The account is fragmentary, contradictory, and ugly. The account from various agencies of the Taiwan government, including the Coast Guard and prosecutors, remains sketchy and details contradictory or missing. Needless to say, U.S. media reports on this incident have just begun to come out more than a week later. In this email, I will try to share with you what I know from various sources and what I think is going on.

It was clear that government authorities in Taiwan have been engaging in coverup and willfully misleading the public. After more than week of leaks, the truth remains shrouded in mystery. The political implications are far reaching and even dangerous.

Here’s what I know to date, based on limited newspaper and TV accounts of what the agencies of Taiwan government said, and on one of the two who survived the ordeal said upon his release and return to China. I am sure there are other sources I did not know and more news reports to come.

Initially, the government sources claimed a small Chinese fishing boat had illegally entered, in broad daylight, the territorial waters of Jinmen.’ It was intercepted and chased by Taiwan’s coast guards off the coast of Jinmen on Wed., Feb.. 14. According to the initial account of the coast guards, the fishermen’s boat fled and in the ensuing chase, the fishing boat capsized and “sank while fleeing, zigzaging.” Two fishermen drowned and died, even though all of them can swim. The other two were rescued by the coast guards and turned over to authorities in Jinmen. There was no immediate announcement and report of the incident. A few days later, on Feb. 20, the relatives of the deceased arrived in Jinmen to claim the bodies of the dead. Instead, they were given the ashes of the deceased with no autopsy reports, no video and photographic evidence, and no interview by Taiwan’s media. The other two were returned to China. On the day of their release, the coast guards bluntly declared that there was no camera on the boat and none mounted on the four coast guards’ helmets and shoulders, a clear indication that they were either lying or in violation of regulations.

Upon their return to China, the two were interviewed by Chinese TV during which they disclosed that the coast guard boat clashed several time into the fishermen’s boat and eventually caused their boat to capsize. They did not know what had happened to their two colleagues. They were arrested and taken to Jinmen for questioning and detention. The coast guards further claimed that the fishermen spoke a Chinese dialect they could not fully understand. They were visibly upset and angry about the death of their colleagues. In the TV interview, the fisherman spoke perfectly standard Chinese, the official language of both the Mainland and Taiwan. I watched excerpts from the interview. I had no problem understanding what the fisherman said. In short, the officials account of what happened were not credible and inconsistent with the survivors’ account. Many questions remain unanswered.

The distance between Jinmen (Kinmen, Quemoy or Gimbng) and Xiamen (Amoy or Ebbing) is about half the distance between San Francisco and Farallon Island outside the Golden Gage Bridge. It is so short that there is an annual swimming contest between the people of Xiamen and Xiamen. Jinmen is, in other words, a stone-throw away from Xiamen. The both belong to the Fujian Province. The people from both sides speak the same dialect, the Minnan dialect 闽南语. Their cultures and customs are identical and their cuisine and customs are indistinguishable. Physically, Jinmen is rural and its architecture is descendant of ancient rural housing while On the other hand, Xiamen, being one of the first 5 treaty ports open the West after China was defeated by England in the Opium War in the 1842 Treaty of Nanjiang, is very urban and more Westernized, including its architecture and religion. The size of Jinmen and Xiamen are about the same, 58 sq. Miles, before Xiamen island was connected by a bridge and enlarged in the 1950s. Now Xiamen is a city 656 sq. mi. and population of 5.2 million and Jinmen has a population of 127,000, including Taiwan’s military personnel. They have been living in peace since the Presidency of Ma Yingjiu. We need to continue his legacy and work hard to improve their relations.

I gave the above brief introduction to say that “current tension” between the two sides is the legacy of the unfinished civil war in China, 1945-49, between the Mainland, once led by Mao Zedong, and Taiwan Province, led by Chiang Kai-shek. Both Jinmen and Xiamen were two islands off the coast of Fujian Province. That’s is why the government of Jinmen is still called the government of Jinmen of the Province of Fujian Province. In 1949, Chiang Kai-shek was humiliating defeated in the Mainland and he fled the Mainland with about 2 million loyalists to Taiwan Province which promptly came under the protection of the U.S. Navy, Army, and Air Force with heavily armed remnants of Chiang’s army left Ito defend Jinmen and another island, Matsu, also off the north coast of Fujian.

It was against this military debacle and the emerging Cold War with the USSR that the U.S. Congress and the Truman administration began an acrimonious and catastrophic debate on “Who loss China?” In rapid succession, this was followed by U.S. intervention in he Korean Peninsula, the rise of McCarthyism, and even more U.S. military intervention in Vietnam in order “to contain Chinese Communist expansion” into Southeast Asia. It eventually took a proven anti-communist campaigner to go to Beijing in 1972 to pave the way for US-China detente, set aside, albeit temporarily, the divisive issue of Taiwan, and end the endless Vietnam War in 1975.
Sadly, we have been witnessing the ascendance of a New Cold War against and economically rising China by President Barack Obama, intensified by President Donald Trump, and rapidly escalated by President Joe Biden to a catastrophic war to prevent China’s peaceful rise in a global power. Biden has been working toward this end by reversing the bipartisan consensus on the policy of engagement and cooperation with China since Nixon’s historic trip to China in 1972 and using Taiwan to confront and provoke China with hostile policies toward China, like using diplomatic, economic, political,and military policies in support of Taiwan independence while mouthing offf, with duplicity, his opposition to Taiwan independence.

It is important to note that both Mainland and Taiwan, as stated in the Joint Communique between Premier Zhou Enlai and President Richard Nixon in 1972, affirmed Taiwan to be a province of China, but over the years, especially since Obama, the U.S. has repeatedly deviated from this principle and has used Taiwan as “an unsinkable aircraft carrier” to advance its policy of containment of China and to use Taiwan provoke incidents to generated negative publicity and anti-China propaganda with impunity.

Regarding the recent incidents in and near the channel separating Jinmen and Xiamen, I consider tham to be deliberate provocation. The so-called middle line separating Jinmen and Xiamen, and the middle line between Mainland and Taiwan in the Strait of Taiwan, in the water or one the air, those line are artificially created in violation of China’s territorial water. If the channel and strait are part of China, there is no such thing as transgressing the middle line. To keep both sides from getting into conflict and out of goodness of China discretion, China has unofficially condoned the imaginary middle line within China’s sovereignty. However, if Taiwan insists of moving Taiwan toward independence and letting itself to be used by the U.S. to provoke tension and incidents, China has no choice but to assert its sovereignty and stop the nonsenses in the imaginary lines. Chinese Coast Guard has legal authority and responsibility to investigate suspicious activities, much less deliberate provocations with ulterior motives. Such incidents can cause mistakes or unfortunate occurrences, potentially with far reaching political and military consequences and tragic consequences.

From my point of view, based on limited information, to be sure, from both sides. I should also say that both sides have acted with restrain, trying to prevent the incident from spinning out of control. The netizens in China are clearly very upset about the way the Chinese government has handled the tragic incident, which many regarded as Taiwan’s deliberate provocation.

I think it is time for the U.S. to reaffirme the principles impeded in the Shanghai Communique and for le Taiwan know that the U.S. is interested only in promoting peaceful reunification of Taiwan and Mainland China for the benefit of the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and Taiwan should not blindly and foolishly think that the U.S. willl come to protect it in the event of a military clash between Mainland and Taiwan.

Jinmen and Xiamen have done a lot to advance peace, better understanding, and mutual benefits between the two sides since Ma YingJiu’s presidency and people of both sides, safe for the two governments, have worked well with each other, so well, they have become dependent of each other. The model is well received and working well. The model should now be the basis for both Mainland and Taiwan to follow

Overwhelming majority of nations of the world, like over 90% ,affirm principle of one China and Taiwan is a province of China except for the U.S. and a very small handful of nations now under the influence and even control of the U.S.

In conclusion, the tragic incident is a personal matter and of great concern to me. I was born and raised in Xiamen and my ancestral home is Jinmen. Since my childhood I have traveled between the two islands. I love both places and their people now living in peace and conducting business in the interests of both sides. I urge the Taiwan government to come clean, investigate the incident thoroughly, and release all relevant information regarding the case to dispel all doubts and suspicions. I urge people everywhere to maintain open-mindedness and good will. I urge them to visit these two islands and their people, to experience the beauty, goodness and harmony between the people. For the same reasons, the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should be left alone without outside provocation and interference, Let them chart their own destiny in the interest of reuniting the two people peacefully. The world will be better if the U.S. would help bring both sides of the Taiwan Strait together and let China and the U.S. live in harmony and work for a better world.

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Here is an update of this rather confusing situation around the deaths of the 2 mainland fishermen in the waters near Kinmen.

What happened appears to be that the Taiwan coast guard, in an overzealous policing action, repeatedly rammed its boat into the fishing boat, causing it to capsize and the drowning of the 2 mainland fishermen. The fishermen did nothing “wrong” other than to venture into the so-called “restricted waters” around Kinmen, for which the normal course of action is for the Taiwan coast guard to warn them to get out of the so-called “restricted waters.” But the new officer in charge of the Taiwan coast guard decided to be aggressive and to chase the fishing boat in an attempt to arrest the fishermen, causing the capsize and deaths.

The Taiwan coast guard then lied about what happened, and blamed the fishermen for dangerous zigzag boat movement to avoid arrest which caused the boat to capsize. It withheld the critical information of the damage to both the fishing and coast guard boats due to the ramming, and denied the existence of any routine video recording of the incident that would normally be taken, by the boat surveillance camera, as well as by those that must be worn by each of the 6 coast guard crews on board according to coast guard regulations.

The Taiwan coast guard really wanted to cremate the bodies of the 2 dead fishermen, but their families objected. The bodies were taken back to the mainland by the Redcross.

The so-called “restricted waters” around Kinmen.

When relations between Taiwan and the mainland relaxed in 1991, both sides withdrew the bulk of their armed forces, leaving only 3000 Taiwan soldiers on Kinmen. The Taiwan military had to decide what to do about the common fishing grounds for both the Fujian and Taiwan fishermen, and decided to draw a line around Kinmen out to sea marked by the reach of machine gun fire from the island, as the so-called “restricted waters” around Kinmen that would be patrolled by Taiwan. This, of course, has no foundation in law or agreement with the mainland. Note that this line actually obstructs the entrance to Xiamen with the result that the mainland boats had to be piloted carefully to avoid this “restricted waters.”

This happened during a honeymoon period in cross Strait relations under the 1992 Consensus, whereby the mainland treats Taiwan people as brothers, and honored the line drawn by Taiwan to its own detriment. This changed when Tsai was elected in 2016, and Taiwan began to vigorously enforce the line, arresting and fining many mainland fishermen and even detaining their boats. But until this incident, there was no intentional ramming of the fishing boats.

The PRC proposed plan for integrating the lives of the people of Taiwan with those of the mainland

Under this plan, the residents of Taiwan will enjoy most of the privileges of mainland residents, as a first step in the peaceful reunification with Taiwan, starting with the province of Fujian. This plan may attract many Taiwan residents to move to Fujian where they speak the same dialect and have the same customs.

The DPP apparently sensed that the US-China tension is subsiding a bit, with both the mainland and Biden intending to assert better control over cross-Straits tension, to prevent it from boiling over. Now it appears that the Tsai regime decided to upset this apple cart. It upped the ante to stir up ill feelings between the peoples across the Straits, by first banning Taiwan tour groups to the mainland, something that the Taiwan tourism industry was eagerly awaiting to boost their business.

The mainland’s plan for reunification with Taiwan

The mainland has clearly indicated that it is carrying out its plan for reunification according to its own time table and initiative. This is demonstrated after the Pelosi visit, whereupon China declared that the imaginary midline in the Taiwan Straits will not henceforth be honored. The PRC also stationed four warships in the waters around Taiwan, as a step to prevent any outside reinforcements for the DPP regime should war break out.

The DPP regime’s new provocation that caused the death of mainland fishermen is a good opportunity for the PRC to take over law enforcement within the “restricted waters” around Kinmen. It did so just a couple days ago by boarding a Kinmen tourism boat to inspect the crew’s and the boat’s papers. If such enforcement actions should lead to conflict with the Taiwan coast guard, so be it. Since the DPP repudiated the 1992 Consensus, there is no reason for the mainland not to exercise its rights in its own territorial waters.

The interesting question now is how far the mainland intends to extend the patrol of its territorial waters in the Taiwan Straits beyond the waters around Kinmen. Will it extend to the entire Taiwan Straits? Some pundits opined that re-unification with Taiwan can take the form of a step-by-step extension of control to all the waters around Taiwan in a salami slicing scheme.

Far from being afraid of DPP or US actions to stir up trouble between people across the Taiwan Straits, the mainland makes use of any mistake that the DPP or the US makes to advance its agenda for reunification with Taiwan. The mainland continues to be restrained in its communication with Taiwan to avoid further fanning the flames of ill feeling among the people. But it is carrying a big stick while doing so.