Taiwan, China launch rescue bid after boat capsizes

STORY: Taiwan joined China on a rescue mission on Thursday (March 14) – after a fishing boat capsized near the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen island.

China requested Taiwan’s help amid heightened tension in the sensitive Taiwan strait.

China claims democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory – despite strong objections from the island.

China has also stepped up military activities near it in recent years, with almost daily breaches into air defense identification zones.

Authorities on both sides sent rescue boats after a Chinese fishing boat capsized just over 1 nautical mile west of Taiwan's Dongding island, Taiwan’s coast guard said.

Deputy Captain of the Kinmen coast guard, Chen Chien-wen:

"Our department immediately set up a contingency center and directed the Kinmen Coast Guard to send four patrol boats to the rescue. After the patrol boats arrived at the scene, it was confirmed that there were a total of six people in distress, and at present, with the joint efforts of the search and rescue units of the two sides and the garrison of Dongding Island, four people have been rescued, of which two are alive and two have no signs of life."

Taiwan's Kinmen defense command said it had not received any request from Chinese authorities to search the island, but that any survivors found would be handed to the coast guard.

Last month, China's coast guard began regular patrols around the Kinmen islands close to its coast - after two Chinese nationals died while trying to flee Taiwan's coast guard after their boat entered prohibited waters.

Last week, Taiwan's top China policy-making body urged its giant neighbor not to change the "status quo" around the waters there by sending coast guard boats into restricted areas, saying tension should be "controllable".