- As many as 315 fishing boats flying the Chinese flag are constantly monitoring GPS and Automatic Identification System signals
Everyone knows the tense relations between China and Taiwan. Chinese warplanes are encroaching on Taiwan’s airspace. In such a situation, more worrying news has come. Taipei Times, citing a recent report by a US-based think tank, says that China’s maritime militia is adopting gray zone strategies in the Taiwan Straits and is sending hundreds of civilian fishing boats into those straits.
A report by the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) has said that Taiwan is keeping dual-use boats afloat in the Straits to threaten Taiwan. It has launched 315 such boats. They are GPS and automatic identification capable.
This information is from a study by a CSIS research team that has mapped the locations of global fishing boat movements and identified China’s secret warships. Sword 2024A and Sword 2024B. They have been given the name and they have obtained this data.
Many Chinese ships have also changed their names in international registries through blackouts (weak signals). One of its ships has changed its identity serial numbers of 11 different Mobile Maritime Service (MMS) 11 times in a single year. A total of 1,300 such changes have been recorded. So that it becomes difficult to identify those ships.
The said think tank has also requested the intelligence agencies of the US and its allies to obtain information about the networks connected to such suspicious ships.
