Taiwan said on June 6 that a Chinese coast guard ship and a survey ship had carried out the first coordinated operation to “provoke” Taiwan, in waters around strategically located islands in the South China Sea.
The Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands, a national park towards the northern end of the South China Sea and lightly defended by the coast guard, have emerged as a new pressure point in China’s ongoing military and quasi-military operations around Taiwan in an effort to assert Beijing’s sovereignty claims.
The islands between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance \u2013 more than 400km \u2013 from Taiwan island.
Taiwan’s coast guard said in a statement that along with a Chinese coast guard ship that had approached the Pratas on June 5, a Chinese oceanographic survey vessel approached the islands on June 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taiwan said on June 6 that a Chinese coast guard ship and a survey ship had carried out the first coordinated operation to “provoke” Taiwan, in waters around strategically located islands in the South China Sea.The Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands, a national park towards the northern end of the South China Sea and lightly defended by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n