Alberto Buzzola/LightRocket via Getty Images
- Taiwan and China authorities are still working together on at least one front: coast guard rescue.
- Taiwan's coast guard has helped China with 17 rescues in the last three years, the agency's chief said.
- Both coast guards launched a joint operation to search for Chinese fishermen on Thursday.
Taiwan's coast guard has run more than a dozen joint rescue operations with China in the last three years, the agency's chief said on Thursday — marking a rare area of cooperation between both governments amid mounting tensions.
Chou Mei-wu, the director-general of Taiwan's coast guard, made the comment in parliament on the same day that his agency announced one such joint effort.
Taiwan's coast guard said it's working with Chinese authorities to rescue crew from a Chinese fishing boat that capsized early Thursday morning near the Kinmen Islands.
The boat was carrying six crew, two of whom were found dead while another two were rescued, Taiwan's coast guard said.
Taiwan dispatched four vessels and China sent six to search for the remaining pair, per the agency.
"In the last three years, we had 17 such cases where they asked us for support, and we rescued 119 people," Chou told legislators.
The joint rescue comes as Beijing's posture toward Taiwan — which it says falls under China's jurisdiction — grows increasingly hostile. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has vowed that reunification is "inevitable," and hasn't ruled out using force to take the self-governed island.
Taiwan in January re-elected the Democratic Progressive Party, which aims to resist Beijing, indicating growing island-wide resentment toward absorption by the mainland.
Despite the tensions, China remains one of Taiwan's most important trade partners, with Taiwanese investments in the mainland totaling $203 billion in the last two decades. But cross-strait investments have fallen to 20-year lows as the threat of war looms and US-China tech disputes rise.
Indeed, Chou revealed the statistics on coast guard cooperation at a four-hour parliamentary hearing discussing the Chinese Communist Party's "normalized intrusion and threats" to Taiwan.
Meanwhile, some on Chinese social media treated the recent joint effort as a sign of Taiwan becoming more subservient to mainland rule. Yet many also expressed unhappiness that the incident was portrayed as Taiwan helping China, and therefore taking the lead.
In February, tensions flared again when a Chinese fishing boat carrying four people capsized in the Taiwan Strait while being pursued by Taiwan's coast guard.
Two of those on board died, while Taiwan temporarily detained the other two.
Taiwan's coast guard said the boat lost balance on a sharp turn. However, China has accused Taipei of lying after one of the fishermen claimed to state media that the coast guard rammed his vessel.