Foreign lawmakers join Taiwan coast guard trip in sensitive waters

Taiwan's coast guard took a group of foreign lawmakers on a patrol Thursday around sensitive islands controlled by Taipei but located only a few kilometres off China.

Beijing claims Taiwan is part of its territory and asserts jurisdiction over the body of water that separates the self-ruled island from China.

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) posted photos and videos on X showing foreign lawmakers on board a Taiwanese coast guard vessel as it went around Kinmen.

It was the "first time ever" that foreign legislators had joined a "routine coast guard patrol in the Taiwan Strait", said IPAC, an international non-profit for legislators who see China's policies as a threat to democratic values.

"We all have skin in the game when it comes to maintaining stability across the Strait," IPAC said in the post, which listed seven foreign lawmakers from Britain, India, Ukraine, Czech Republic and New Zealand, as well as two legislators from Taiwan.

"China's actions threaten our collective interests. We have come to observe the situation firsthand on a routine patrol."

Chinese coast guard ships regularly enter the waters near Kinmen, which has been on the frontline of friction between Beijing and Taipei for decades.

Cross-strait tensions spiked last month after the Chinese coast guard and other ships launched their first "law enforcement operation" in waters east of Taiwan.