China says its coast guard patrols around Taiwan islands ‘beyond reproach’

China’s government said on Wednesday that its coast guard patrols around a group of Taiwanese islands near the Chinese coast were “beyond reproach”, and dismissed complaints the boarding of a Taiwan tourist boat had caused panic.
China’s coast guard this month began regular patrols around the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen islands, which face China’s Xiamen and Quanzhou cities, where two Chinese nationals died trying to flee Taiwan’s coast guard after their boat entered prohibited waters.
Taiwan said last week a Taiwanese tourist boat operating from Kinmen had been boarded briefly by China’s coast guard, triggering “panic”, and that this week five Chinese ships entered prohibited or controlled waters.
Speaking at a regular news briefing in Beijing, Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, reiterated it does not recognise any off-limits waters around Kinmen for fishermen, and said that the coast guard did not cause alarm with boarding the tourist boat.