Via US News & World Report, February 5:
ON BOARD THE TAIWAN COAST GUARD SHIP PP-10062, East China Sea (Reuters) - Taiwanese coast guard commander Lin Chie-ming is on the frontline of a new type of warfare that China is waging against Taiwan. China's weapon? Sand.
On a chilly morning in late January, Lin, clad in an orange uniform, stood on the rolling deck of his boat as it patrolled in choppy waters off the Taiwan-run Matsu Islands. A few kilometers away, the Chinese coast was faintly visible from Lin's boat. He was on the lookout for Chinese sand-dredging ships encroaching on waters controlled by Taiwan.
The Chinese goal, Taiwanese officials say: pressure Taiwan by tying down the island democracy's naval defenses and undermining the livelihoods of Matsu residents.
Half an hour into the patrol, Lin's nine-man crew spotted two 3,000-ton dredgers, dwarfing their 100-ton vessel. Parked just outside Taiwan's waters, neither of the dredgers clearly displayed their names, making it difficult for a crew member to identify them as he peered through binoculars.
Upon spotting Lin's boat, armed with two water cannons and a machine gun, the dredgers quickly pulled up anchor and headed back toward the Chinese coast.
"They think this area is part of China's territory," said Lin, referring to Chinese dredgers that have been intruding into Matsu's waters. "They usually leave after we drive them away, but they come back again after we go away."
The sand-dredging is one weapon China is using against Taiwan in a campaign of so-called gray-zone warfare, which entails using irregular tactics to exhaust a foe without actually resorting to open combat. Since June last year, Chinese dredgers have been swarming around the Matsu Islands, dropping anchor and scooping up vast amounts of sand from the ocean bed for construction projects in China.
The ploy is taxing for Taiwan's civilian-run Coast Guard Administration, which is now conducting round-the-clock patrols in an effort to repel the Chinese vessels. Taiwanese officials and Matsu residents say the dredging forays have had other corrosive impacts - disrupting the local economy, damaging undersea communication cables and intimidating residents and tourists to the islands. Local officials also fear that the dredging is destroying marine life nearby.
To see the interactive version of this story open this link: https://tmsnrt.rs/39OYbAZ
Besides Matsu, where 13,300 people live, the coast guard says China has also been dredging in the shallow waters near the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which has long served as an unofficial buffer separating China and Taiwan.
Last year, Taiwan expelled nearly 4,000 Chinese sand-dredgers and sand-transporting vessels from waters under its control, most of them in the area close to the median line, according to Taiwan's coast guard. That's a 560% jump over the 600 Chinese vessels that were repelled in all of 2019.
In Matsu, there were also many Chinese vessels that sailed close to Taiwanese waters without actually entering, forcing the coast guard to be on constant alert.
The dredging is a "gray-zone strategy with Chinese characteristics," said Su Tzu-yun, an associate research fellow at Taiwan's top military think tank, the Institute for National Defense and Security Research. "You dredge for sand on the one hand, but if you can also put pressure on Taiwan, then that's great, too."....
....MUCH MORE
Previously:"Aboard the Giant Sand-Sucking Ships That China Uses to Reshape the World"
From MIT's Technology Review, December 18, 2018:
Massive ships, mind-boggling amounts of sand, and an appetite for expansionism in the South China Sea: the recipe for a land grab like no other....
