Taiwan's government took a small group of foreign lawmakers on a coast guard ship around sensitive Taiwan-controlled islands next to the Chinese coast on Thursday, pushing back against China's coast guard whose patrols have angered Taipei.
China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and recognises no claims of sovereignty or maritime jurisdiction by Taipei.
In 2024, China's coast guard began regular patrols around Taiwan's Kinmen islands, which face China's Xiamen and Quanzhou cities, following the death of two Chinese nationals fleeing Taiwan's Coast Guard after entering restricted waters.
Since last month, China's coast guard has also patrolled in waters off Taiwan's east coast in what it said was a "law enforcement" operation - a move that sparked concern in the US, Britain, France and Germany, and infuriated Taipei.
On board the Taiwan Coast Guard ship PP-10081 for a 90-minute tour in waters around the Kinmen islands were seven foreign lawmakers and two Taiwanese members of parliament.
The trip, believed to be the first of its kind, underscores Taiwan's efforts to draw international attention to the dispute at a time when China's expanding maritime patrols are testing Taiwan's ability to defend its waters and raising alarm among some Western governments.
The PP-10081 is one of several 100-tonne patrol ships stationed in Kinmen. It did not carry any weapons on deck, and the crew were not visibly armed.
Encounters between Taiwanese and Chinese Coast Guard vessels around Kinmen are typically limited to radio exchanges and verbal warnings.
Britain's Tom Tugendhat, a former security minister and a strident China critic, told Reuters on the boat that being there was an important show of support for Taiwan.
"I'm in Taiwan. I'm in Taiwanese waters. This has nothing to do with Beijing. This is to do with simply defending the international rules-based system that the Chinese Government in Beijing claims to have signed up to," he said.
Joining him were two other British lawmakers, as well as one each from Ukraine, the Czech Republic, India and New Zealand, all members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. They were on a trip organised by Taiwan's foreign ministry and the Ocean Affairs Council, which runs the Coast Guard.
Asked about the trip, China's foreign ministry said Beijing firmly opposes lawmakers from countries that have diplomatic ties with China making "sneaky visits" to Taiwan.
"The so-called alliance you mentioned has...spread lies and rumours concerning China, and has no credibility whatsoever," the ministry said in a statement, referring to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.
Tsai Chung-mou, deputy director of the Taiwan Coast Guard's Fleet Branch, told Reuters the government hoped the trip would help the international community get a better idea of the pressure Taiwan was facing from China.
"We hope that all countries around the world that support freedom and democracy can understand that Kinmen stands on the front line of the Taiwan Strait, facing the Chinese Communist Party," he said.
While no Chinese Coast Guard vessels appeared during the tour, Taiwan's coast guard said Chinese ships had conducted one of their regular incursions into Kinmen waters the previous day.
The vessel sailed around the northern coast of Kinmen, giving the lawmakers a clear view of China just a few kilometres (miles) away, including Xiamen's new airport, which Taiwan says China has failed to provide safety information for given it is so close to Kinmen's airport.
Ukrainian lawmaker Yulia Sirko said there were many parallels between the situation Taiwan was facing with China, and Ukraine, which Russia invaded in 2022.
"And these lessons consist of, first of all, that if you want peace, start preparing for war. And unfortunately, we didn't do it in the right time, so this is lesson number one from the Ukrainian experience," she said.
Taiwan has controlled Kinmen, along with the Matsu islands which sit further up the Chinese coast, since the defeated Republic of China government fled to Taipei in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's Communists.
While Taiwan's Coast Guard does not go outside of Taiwan-controlled waters around Kinmen, China's Coast Guard does enter those same waters on a regular basis.
The last serious attempt by China to take Kinmen by force was in 1958 during what is generally referred to as the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. China's almost daily firing of artillery at the Kinmen and Matsu islands ended only in 1979.
Today Kinmen is a popular tourist destination and there are regular ferry services to China, though Taiwan retains a heavy military presence.
China's government refuses to speak to Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, saying he is a "separatist". Lai says only Taiwan's people can decide their future and that Beijing has no right to claim the island or represent it on the international stage.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Ros Russell)
