China demands compensation from Taiwan after collision of navy ship, trawler
BEIJING, April 4 (Reuters) - China has demanded that Taiwan compensate Chinese fishermen for losses after a Taiwanese navy landing ship and a Chinese fishing boat collided outside restricted waters last week.
The Taiwanese vessel, the Chung Ho, collided with the Chinese trawler Minlianyu 61756 early on March 27 shortly after midnight around 45 nautical miles (83 km) off Taiwan's Taichung port, which sits on the Taiwan Strait, and nine nautical miles outside of "restricted waters", Taiwanese navy said last week.
"The responsibility for the accident lies entirely with the Taiwan ship, but the Taiwan ship had a bad attitude and evaded responsibility after hitting the fishing boat," Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for China's Taiwan Affairs Office, said in a statement sent to Reuters on Friday.
Zhu said China's preliminary investigation showed that the Chinese trawler was anchored with its automatic identification system (AIS) signal and warning lights turned on.
It was hit by the Taiwanese ship that did not display its AIS signal or warning lights, Zhu said.
Taiwan's navy, responding to the demand for compensation, said an investigation led by Taiwan's coast guard was ongoing, and that after the probe "follow-up matters will be handled in accordance with the cross-strait consultation mechanism and relevant procedures". It did not elaborate.
The Taiwan Strait is the site of daily Chinese and Taiwanese military activities, though both sides normally maintain a respectful distance and there have been no exchanges of fire for decades.
China, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has ramped up its military drills around the island in recent years.
Taiwan rejects China's sovereignty claims.
The Chinese military staged two days of war games around Taiwan this week, in which it held long-range, live-fire drills in the East China Sea.
Beijing said the exercises were a response to what it views as provocations from Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, who won an election last year and whom Beijing reviles as a "separatist".
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Metro
36 minutes ago
- Metro
The megacity bigger than Scotland where 2,600,000 cameras are always watching
Big Brother is not just watching in the Chinese megacity of Chongqing – he is everywhere, all at once. Boasting a population of 30million people, and stretching across 31,815 square miles, it is one of the largest cities in the world, and even bigger than entire countries – like Scotland. What also sets the former wartime capital of China apart is the sprawling CCTV network that operates inside. Stepping inside Chongqing, every street, alleyway and apartment building is watched by cameras. The way it works is that neighbourhoods are divided into a grid-like pattern with 15-20 households per square. Each grid has a monitor which reports back on residents' activities to local committees. A report to the Chinese National People's Congress from earlier in March offers a glimpse of how this system works and how Chinese authorities are ramping up surveillance even further. It said another 27,900 surveillance cameras alongside 245 sensors were installed as part of the comprehensive 'grid' surveillance, Radio Free Asia reported. Cities in China are under the heaviest surveillance system in the world, with estimated 626 million cameras to 1.43 billion people. But Chongqing beats even science and technology hubs like Beijing and Shanghai, with almost 2.6million cameras in the city equating to one camera for every six residents. It is all part of a sophisticated mass surveillance project, conducted by the Chinese government through Internet surveillance, CCTV and through other digital technologies. Metro spoke to Dr Xiaobai Shen, a senior lecturer in international and Chinese business at the University of Edinburgh. She's lived in the UK for more than 30 years, and in the last decade her research has focused on advancing its digital data-based technologies. The social credit system is one of these – a national record rolled out in 2014 which tracks the trustworthiness of people and businesses, in the hope of regulating and improving behaviour and reducing crime. So while surveillance, including in Chongqing, feeds into that system, it is starting to be seen as a more positive thing in China rather than an invasion of privacy or intrusion. Dr Shen told Metro about the origins of the system: 'At that time there was rampant commercial fraud, economic losses, there was government judicial mistrust, and third was public safety issues and food related scandals, like the melamine tainted milk scandal. 'You didn't really feel China was a safe place. That is when the Chinese government pushed out the social credit system, to reboot society to be trustworthy, to build a trustworthy society and get back to the traditional Chinese culture. 'In reality the system is not monolithic and top down by central government, in reality there are hundreds of local projects. 'The cameras are only one part of the surveillance technology. There was a lot of investment used to set up all these surveillance cameras, but also a real name registration system, so every mobile SIM card is linked to your national ID. 'In China nowadays they don't really have any use for cash, they always use mobile payment wherever you go, you have a mobile on you, and if you got on the bus or take a train it can be monitored. 'The people living in different communities have different needs, so what you call dystopian in China it's considered a custom service, a local administration serves the local people. 'Over here in Edinburgh if you want to wait for a pothole to be fixed, possibly 10 years, but over there you could call up the local authority and straight away a drone is sent to inspect it and then they get things done. 'Last time I came back from China, sitting in the plane, and an old woman sat by me and we were talking about something and she said 'oh well, we all know we are now naked', so she knew there's surveillance, people gradually learn and understand.' Another element of what makes Chongqing so dystopian is the way the city is set up. Its mountainous geography has forced architects to utilise vertical space and create a multi-layered urban structure. Buildings and infrastructure are integrated into this terrain, with roads and metro lines erected above ground or tunneled through slopes and even residential skyscrapers, also to maximise space. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Historic neighbourhoods built centuries ago have been preserved as pedestrian-friendly tourist destinations, standing proudly next to towering modern blocks. Chongqiang was a significant military industrial hub during the Mao era and World War II, but the leftovers from this legacy have been reuses. For example, former weapons plants have been converted into creative centres, cultural parks, and tech campuses. This has resulted in a '5D city' where different levels of infrastructure are interconnected even high up in the sky. Most transport including rivers, railways and the main roads remain on ground of lower levels. But those roads can consist of up to five levels stacked on top of each other: the Huangjuewan Interchange, for example, is a complicated five-layer intersection with 15 ramps. The city is also known as the 'bridge capital of China' as it is home to more than 40 significant bridges, including Chaotianmen Bridge – one of the longest arch bridges in the world. Mid levels feature residential neighbourhoods, public plazas and shops, while public facilities like schools are higher up. This means high-rise buildings can have multiple public entrances on different floors, depending on which side you enter from. The city also boasts 298 skyscrapers over 100 metres tall and 26 buildings exceeding 200 metres, ranking 15th worldwide for the number of skyscrapers and sixth in mainland China. To put that into context, there are currently just 12 towers in London that exceed 200m. The city is also home to The Crystal, a horizontal skyscraper which connects four skyscrapers high in the air. For the growing number of tourists, the 5D city is a fascinating phenomenon, but for residents – particularly the working class who live on the lower levels of Chongqing – it means that sunlight has become luxury. The megacity is also perpetually grey, enshrouded by a thick layer of fog for over 100 days of the year, forcing residents to live in the dark for at least a third of the year. But planners have attempted to break this up and reduce the monotony by creating rooftop public parks on top of skyscrapers. More Trending The city has been broken up into three distinct zones: the central city, satellite towns, and the rural belt. Chongqing's famous skyline and most of its economic activity takes place in the central core, but new development zones are being set up to move activity outside of the city centre. Outer districts and counties feature mountainous agricultural terrain alongside ecological preservation zones. A version of this article was originally published on May 1, 2025 Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Urgent recall of 1,700,000 air conditioners over fears they harbour mold MORE: Tourist smashes two Terracotta Army warriors during bizarre museum rampage MORE: British man arrested in the US is accused of spying for China
The Herald Scotland
3 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Lord Sainsbury: Give Glasgow greater devolved powers
"A major challenge which government faces if it wants to increase Scotland's rate of growth is a way to find and support such clusters," he said. "All the evidence from other countries suggests that the only way to effectively support clusters is to do so at a city region level. Read more: "I appreciate in Scotland, unlike in England, metro mayors have not yet been introduced, but if you want to support high-tech clusters, this is something I think you should seriously consider, with Greater Glasgow being given powers similar to those devolved to Greater Manchester and the West Midlands." Lord Sainsbury was speaking at the Creating the Jobs of Tomorrow conference organised by Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, where he was introduced to the stage by former Labour chancellor and prime minister Gordon Brown. Mr Brown said growth and productivity have been perennial problems in the UK and Scotland, with innovation the key to boosting performance. A new study by economist Dan Turner, head of research at the Centre for Progressive Policy, has suggested this could unlock the creation of hundreds of thousands of high-value jobs. "There are huge sources of innovation and inventiveness in Scotland, just as has been traditional in our history," he said. "The question is can we turn that into scalable companies that stay in Scotland, invest in Scotland, create jobs in Scotland, and Dan's study suggests we could create 300,000 jobs in the next 10 years. "That's 300,000 well-paying jobs, 120,000 in the new industries, the spin-offs in terms of the service sector another 180,000 - that is a possibility if we invest in the infrastructure, the skills, and the development necessary to achieve that." Lord David Sainsbury (Image: Nate Cleary) Lord Sainsbury is a Labour peer and served as minister for science and innovation under Mr Brown and his prime ministerial predecessor, Tony Blair, between 1998 and 2006. He was appointed a life peer in 1997. Lord Sainsbury said there are new opportunities for employment and growth in sectors such as quantum computing, artificial intelligence and biotechnology. "There are economists that will argue that it is investment that is the engine of economic growth, but we have to realise today that capital flows easily around the world, and it flows as it has always done, to where the best investment opportunities are created by innovation," Lord Sainsbury said. "You can sit in London today and you can invest in Silicon Valley, you can invest in practically any country - until recently you could even invest in Chinese venture capital - because that is what modern communication enables you to do. That is why investment is not the real driver of the economy, it's innovation." Among the other speakers was Michael Spence, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for his work in the analysis of markets with information imbalances. Read more: "There are two things that [people] associate with Adam Smith correctly," Mr Spence said. "One the 'invisible hand', which is the market system is a reasonably efficient tool for decentralising and allocating resources. "That actually is not the most important thing that Adam Smith said, but it's the one that neo-conservatives remember because they elevate market systems to the status of a religion, rather than a way of accomplishing economic and social goals. The most important one for our purposes is specialisation. "Adam Smith meant specialisation within an economy, when of course everything that David Sainsbury talked about in the global economy is just the Adam Smith insight writ large, and of course it is the ultimate source of growth. "Without specialisation you don't get scale of spread your activity over too much territory, and you don't get innovation. You get nothing if everybody has to do everything. "The fundamental message I want to deliver today is that's still true, and that growth is fundamentally about specialisation and structural change."
Reuters
6 hours ago
- Reuters
North Korea internet hit by a major outage, analyst says
SEOUL, June 7 (Reuters) - North Korea's internet is experiencing a major outage on Saturday, said a UK-based researcher, adding that the cause may be may be internal rather than a cyberattack. North Korea's main news web sites and its Foreign Ministry internet site were inaccessible on Saturday morning, according to checks by Reuters. "A major outage is currently occurring on North Korea's internet - affecting all routes whether they come in via China or Russia," said Junade Ali, a U.K.-based researcher who monitors the North Korean internet. North Korea's entire internet infrastructure is not showing up on systems that can monitor internet activities, he said. "Hard to say if this is intentional or accidental - but seems like this is internal rather than an attack," he said. Officials at South Korea's Police cyber terror response centre which monitors North Korea's cyber activities could not be reached for comment.
