China deploys large sand dredgers to increase pressure on Taiwan

On an evening of this month, one can hear the rumbling of Chinese commercial sand dredgers coming from the largest southern coast of Taiwan’s Matsu Islands.

Cai Maochen of the Mazu Coast Guard said: “They will come back after the monsoon season.” He explained that the number of illegal sand dredgers has increased in recent weeks after the storm was interrupted.

Last month, Cai’s team expelled 59 illegal dredgers and sand carriers from shallow waters near Matsu, less than 10 kilometers from Fujian, China.

These ships are digging sand to feed China’s infrastructure construction and land reclamation projects in coastal cities, which are pushing up local prices. The most commonly used product in the world after water.

But analysts warn that dredgers are also being used to threaten 13,000 Taiwanese islanders.

“This is psychological warfare,” said Su Ziyun, an analyst at the Institute of Defense and Security, a think tank supported by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense.

He believes that private sand dredgers are part of Beijing’s “grey zone strategy” aimed at weakening the defenses of these islands and intimidating people without resorting to means. military force.

Taiwanese officials added that the dredgers are destroying the marine environment, causing the beaches of Matsu to recede and accelerating the decline in catches.

The dredger weighs between 1,000 to 9,000 tons and has a length of up to 100 meters. It is mainly concentrated in the waters between Nangan Island and West Island, mainly outside the restricted area.

But in the past month, these ships have often spilled into the waters that Taiwan requires jurisdiction, 6 kilometers away from the coastline of Matsu. The dredgers were driven out of the Coast Guard by water cannons, forcing them to return to China.

Although Taiwan has been sentenced to up to seven years in prison for illegal sand digging and fined NT$100 million (US$3.6 million), the number of intrusions is still increasing.

But officials complained that Matsu lacks the resources to carry out every dredger. Cai said: “In the worst moment of last year, there were hundreds of ships in our waters… but we confiscated two.”

Analysts say that the profit from selling sand exceeds the risk of dredger losses and the risk of paying workers trapped in Taiwan’s prisons. Su estimates that a 5,000-ton boat can fill three Olympic-sized swimming pools with sand in one day, at a price of US$55,000.

In order to protect the marine ecology, Beijing has carried out limited dredging activities in its own waters, pushing Chinese ships into waters that Taiwan claims to control, and using conflicting territorial and maritime claims.

Matsu opposition politician Li Wen said that the Chinese Coast Guard was inconsistent in responding to Taiwan’s complaints about the invasion of Dr. The Chinese Coast Guard did not respond to a request for comment.

Beijing’s assertion that democratic Taiwan is part of its territory was rejected by Taipei. Taiwan said that the islands, including the Matsu Group, are part of a de facto sovereign state. In the past year, the People’s Liberation Army has been conducting operations almost every day due to the intensification of Taiwan’s status. Send out fighters Enter the Taiwan Air Defense Identification Zone.

Li said: “Now, these huge Titans invade Taiwan’s waters and consume our coast guard.” Last year, Matsu’s small 100-ton Coast Guard fleet drove nearly 4,000 ships from the waters around Matsu. .

“It is difficult for Taiwan to adequately cope with this challenge. If we do not take any measures, we will destroy the environment.” Lii added.

“However, if we take military action against civilian dredgers, then this may provide an excuse for China to further aggravate the tension in the Taiwan Strait.”

In 2020, the dredger cut the submarine communication cable six times, interrupting the Internet and telecommunications connections of 736 residents of Nishiju Island. A Taiwanese official who asked not to be named told the Financial Times that the incident has caused vigilance in the capital: “We don’t know whether China cut off communications before cutting off serious actions against Matsu.”

A representative of Chunghwa Telecom, Mazu’s main network provider, said there was no evidence that the cables were deliberately cut. However, security analysts say that these incidents should be examined in the context of China’s cyber attacks on Taiwan.

Before the recent re-emergence of dredgers, Matsu officials were optimistic that a series of joint operations conducted by the Taiwan and China Coast Guard in October and November ended this illegal activity.

After Tsai Ing-wen’s victory in the first presidential election in 2016, Beijing closed the cross-strait communication channel with Taipei, which is in stark contrast to the radio silence between the leaders of the two countries.

On these islands, residents were angry and complained that their fisheries were threatened by dug up the sand that sustains marine life and transported it to China. “Our fishermen bear the brunt,” said a local official who asked not to be named.

He continued: “Matsushi was once a fishing paradise, and the waters were full of various fish and shellfish. Dredging boats destroyed the marine ecology. Our fishermen are now trying to earn a living from the sea.”