The Free China Movement condemns the multi-point maritime harassment carried out by the PRC (Mainland) against ROC (Taiwan) on October 18, 2026, and calls on the international community to recognize it for what it is: a coordinated gray-zone operation to manufacture a false appearance of jurisdiction over waters that Beijing does not administer.
According to the ROC Coast Guard Administration, mainland coast guard, research, and other government vessels — twelve in total, accompanied by four fishing boats in formation — operated simultaneously in waters east of Hualien, south of Pingtung, southwest of Kaohsiung, and around the Dongsha (Pratas) Islands. The research vessel Tansuo-3 entered restricted waters east of Hualien; the research vessel Beidiao 996 entered restricted waters off Pingtung in the early hours and withdrew only after twelve broadcast warnings; off Kaohsiung, the research vessel Haiyang Dizhi 8 and a mainland steel-hulled fishing boat interfered with the ROC (Taiwan) fishing vessel Wan Fa Cheng No. 11 as it worked; and around Dongsha, mainland coast guard vessels 3301 and 3303 circled the island in opposite directions in a plainly provocative maneuver. ROC (Taiwan) coast guard cutters monitored every incursion and, by midday, had expelled all mainland coast guard vessels from restricted waters.
The ROC Coast Guard Administration has characterized this operation accurately: “fake law enforcement, real expansion of power.” Vessels conducting surveys, interference with fishing, and choreographed encirclement are not administering law. They are rehearsing a claim — that the PRC (Mainland) may police waters under the effective administration of ROC (Taiwan) — and repeating it until the abnormal is made to seem routine. Each unopposed repetition erodes the status quo across the Taiwan Strait and endangers fishermen and mariners who have worked these waters for generations.
The Free China Movement therefore states:
- The PRC (Mainland) authorities must immediately cease gray-zone maritime harassment of ROC (Taiwan), including the use of research vessels and fishing formations as instruments of coercion.
- Democratic partners and the wider international community should name this pattern plainly, affirm freedom of navigation and the peaceful status quo in the Taiwan Strait, and refuse to treat manufactured jurisdiction as fact.
- These incidents are being documented. Officials who design and direct coercive operations against civilian mariners bear responsibility for the risks they create, and that record will be kept.
The Free China Movement stands for a simple principle: the future of the Taiwan Strait must be decided by the free will of the people, never by pressure at sea. We stand with the fishermen of ROC (Taiwan), with its coast guard, and with all who refuse to let repetition turn coercion into custom.