Every time he goes out to sea, Captain Wu’s gaze constantly alternates between the horizon and the GPS screen. The fisherman with oval glasses, cap on his head, must pay attention to all the cargo ships which cross the Taiwan Strait or enter the port of Xiamen, a large Chinese city close to the small island of Kinmen, under Taiwanese control, where he is born and still lives.
However, for him, the main danger is not so much the maritime traffic, however dense it may be, as the red line that appears around the island and adjacent islets on his screen. The route of what Taiwan calls its “restricted waters” is today at the heart of tensions. Moreover, barely had he headed west, after leaving the seawall of the port of Kinmen behind him, when the Taiwanese coast guard, who greeted him on the pontoon a few minutes earlier , remind him by radio to be careful: he must not cross this route.
About a nautical mile (1,852 meters) in front of it passes a huge container ship from the Hong Kong shipowner OOCL, then, in the other direction, a ferry from the Chinese shipping giant Cosco, owner of OOCL. The 56-year-old man looks up again; this time, he saw a long white boat which he points to: “It’s one of their ships, the one that’s moving fast, they’re watching us, as we approach the line. » Using binoculars, he confirms the “China Coast Guard” inscription on the hull of the patrol boat and the blue and red lines. “What is worrying is that we no longer know the limits between them and us”confides the fisherman.
Watchtowers, bunkers
In the waters of the Taiwan Strait, the situation has become tense in the run-up to the inauguration, Monday May 20, of the new Taiwanese president, Lai Ching-te, hated by China. Kinmen fishermen are on the front line. The island of 128,000 inhabitants is less than four kilometers from the Chinese mainland, while it is 187 kilometers from the main island of Taiwan, which governs it.
The area in which Captain Wu sails, who wishes to use an assumed name, testifies to the political charge of the sector. On the side of the islets it runs alongside, watchtowers, bunkers and anti-landing peaks appear, and we also see soldiers waiting. A large rock is dominated by a giant concrete loudspeaker, which has long broadcast a song by Taiwanese singer Teresa Teng to appeal to the citizens of communist China.
You have 68.22% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.