China has returned four crew members of a Taiwanese fishing boat who were detained for more than a month for crossing into Chinese waters. It's one of a series of recent incidents that have increased tensions in the strait separating Taiwan and China.
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00:00Four crew members of a Taiwanese fishing boat detained in China are on their way back to
00:05Taiwan after being held for over a month, but the boat's captain is still in detention
00:10in China.
00:11Louise Watt is following the story for us from Taipei.
00:15Louise, what do we know about these men's release?
00:19Well, their release comes after discussions between Taiwanese officials and city-level
00:26officials in China.
00:28And this morning, China released four fishers.
00:30One was Taiwanese.
00:31Three were Indonesian.
00:32As you say, Laurel, the captain is still in China along with their boat, and that's because
00:37of an ongoing investigation, according to China.
00:40Now, the four who were released, they were taken in a small boat from a port in China
00:47to the median line in the Taiwan Strait.
00:50That's the unofficial border between Taiwan and China.
00:54And that's where the handover took place.
00:57Now, it's obviously dependent on the weather, but if all goes according to plan, they should
01:01arrive back on the Taiwanese island of Penghu tonight.
01:05Now, the background to this case, they were detained by China's coast guard at the beginning
01:11of July in waters close to Jinmen.
01:15That's a Taiwanese island.
01:17China's coast guard says they were in Chinese waters.
01:20They were flouting a seasonal ban on fishing in that area.
01:25And they were also using illegal fishing nets.
01:28That's because their nets had a mesh that was a smaller size than what was allowed to
01:32protect fishing stocks.
01:34Now, Taiwan recognized that they were in Chinese waters, but they said it was unusual for a
01:40fishing vessel to be treated in this way.
01:42And they characterized the response from China as heavy-handed.
01:46Now, this was one case in a series in the past few months that have raised tensions
01:53in the waters between Taiwan and China.
01:57In February, two Chinese fishers drowned while being chased by Taiwan's coast guard.
02:03Just two weeks ago, their bodies and their boat were returned back to China.
02:09Soon after that, China released a Taiwanese fisherman who had been held in China for more
02:15than four months.
02:17So on one hand, it seems that perhaps tensions are easing between the two.
02:23On the other hand, both Taiwan and China have boosted military maritime security in the
02:30area since these incidents.
02:33And Taiwan accuses China's coast guard of increasing incursions around the areas, around
02:38the waters of Jinmen.
02:41And also today, Taiwan's defense ministry said that in the few hours before the handover
02:47took place, 16 Chinese planes flew over the median line.
02:52And so that is a reminder of the military pressure that China is piling on Taiwan.