Taiwan has developed a blacklist that lists 52 Chinese ships with convenient flags. Taiwan will track and take the initiative to check these vessels to regulate the “shadow fleet”, which regulates rapidly growing. The fleet is causing global security concerns.
At the time of this move, the number of aging vessels that evaded supervision and hidden identity through deception signals increased.
Although the international community’s attention is concentrated in Russia’s use of this shadow fleet to export oil to avoid its sanctions on the Ukrainian war, the scale of such vessels has exceeded the scope of the tanker and has constituted increasingly and larger coastal countries. Maritime and national security risks.
This month, a dilapidated Chinese freighter was suspected of cutting off one of the submarine cables. Following a similar incident involving Chinese and Russian vessels in the Baltic Sea, Taipei launched a crackdown.
According to the blacklist seen by the Financial Times, the stricter inspection system is aimed at the cargo ships sailing by Cameroon, Tanzania, Mongolia, Dogo, and Sierra Leine. Register in Hong Kong or Macau.
“The risk of unqualified ships reminds us of unqualified ships. This is risks for all coastal countries. We must fulfill our responsibility as a port country.” In addition, we also face additional risks from China. “
Beijing claims that Taiwan is part of its territory and threatens that if Taipei refuses unification indefinitely, it will annex Taiwan with force. As China often incorporates merchant ships into military exercises and uses fishing vessels as a militia to advocate controversial marine sovereignty, Taiwanese officials are worried that Chinese owners may be used as part of the “gray zone” operation below the threshold of the comprehensive war.
Dozens of countries including Cameroon, Tanzania, Mongolia, Dogo, and Sierra Leone allow shipowners to register their ships without settlement in the country. Shippers often choose this convenient flag to avoid higher costs, stricter safety standards and stricter supervision in their own country.
The Memorandum of Understanding of Tokyo is a multilateral organization responsible for the control of the port. Taipei will focus on these five countries, because ships registered in these countries are the highest in violation of maritime security or labor regulations or avoiding sanctions. Asia -Pacific region.
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An official said that due to Beijing’s opposition, Taiwan is not a member of the Memorandum of Understanding in Tokyo, but “through the pipeline” has received a list of problems in the organization. Then, it “reduced” the list by selecting owners with a Chinese background.
The Taiwan government has marked 15 of these 52 ships as a threat to Taiwan because they have stayed in the territorial waters in Taiwan for 15 days in the past year. The blacklist shows that the vessels suspected of cutting the cable are defined as a “high threat”, and the other four are defined as “moderate threat”, and ten are defined as “certain threats”.
On Thursday, the Maritime Police boarded and checked a cargo “Baoshun” with a 20 -year -old ship and hanging the Mongolian flag. The cargo wheel was owned by a Hong Kong registered company. This is the first use of the new regulatory method.
The ship has been idle near Taiwan for two months, and is one of the vessels that have been identified as moderate threats. A person close to the Maritime Port Bureau said that in the past, the port supervision department would only conduct spot checks on ships entering Hong Kong.
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The inspection did not find invalid documents, prohibited goods or cable cutting equipment on the ship. But the marine police instructed him to leave the waters of Taiwan. As of Sunday, the ship has drifted 27 sea crickets outside the country’s largest port. The reporter failed to contact Bao Shun’s boat owner’s comment.
On January 3, a underwater communication cable owned by the Global Telecom Alliance was cut off near the North Coast of Taiwan. The Taiwan government will determine the suspect of the Shunxing 39 of the Cameroon National Flag. The ship is staggered in a number of regions and the regions where cross -Pacific cables landed at least one month.
According to the analysis of the tracking data of the three different providers in the Financial Times, the real name of the ship is “Xing Shun 39”, registered in Tanzania, but in the past year Essence
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A few weeks before the incident, the company alternated two different maritime mobile service signs (MMSIs) of the automatic recognition system (AIS) broadcast. In the past year, it has appeared in three different names, one of which has used three different spelling and four different MMSIs. It also briefly assumes the identity of a separate ship.
“In the normally, bright shipping industry, this deception behavior is unheard of, but if you are doing something you don’t want to see, then manipulating AIS will be a common strategy,” Brons and Diakun (Bridget Diakun).
Failure to contact the shipowner of Xingshun No. 39 for comment.
Taiwan national security officials said that over the past two years, the number of vessels that meet the “shadow vessels” standards in the region have increased.
According to the Taiwan Coast Guards and port officials, these vessels mainly transport frozen foods and miscellaneous small goods, which usually rely on smaller shuttle to transport goods at sea. A port official said: “Their business model is to reduce costs as much as possible by avoiding regular maintenance and rarely entering Hong Kong.”
Analysts said these observations reflect the sharp increase in global shadow vessels.
Elizabeth Blau, an expert on maritime security experts at the Atlantic Council, said: “Since Russia began to violate the sanctions regulations and use the shadow fleet to transport oil, the obstacles of respect have been broken.”
“Russia has proven that you can operate the ship in violation of international regulations without having any consequences.” “Usually, when your ship reaches the age of retirement, you need to pay for Doing this is to get the reward by sending it into the shadow fleet.
