Taiwan's defense minister, Wellington Koo, told lawmakers on October 12 that Chinese maritime militia fishing boats are, by definition, part of China's armed forces, just as China's coast guard ships are, and that if they carry out or assist military operations at sea, Taiwan's military will respond together with its coast guard. But Koo did not announce a change in how Taiwan responds day to day. If militia boats or Chinese coast guard ships cross into Taiwan's waters, he said, Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration will still be the first to act, expelling them as a law-enforcement matter, with the navy providing support under an existing agreement between the two. None of the reports of his remarks describe new rules of engagement or a change in law. Taiwan's military had already updated its rules of engagement to counter China's gray-zone tactics earlier this year and tested them in the summer Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan's Central News Agency reported in August.
The question that prompted it
Koo was answering Huang Chien-pin, a legislator from the opposition Kuomintang, at a meeting of the legislature's Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Huang cited a Reuters report that a Chinese maritime militia boat had appeared off Taiwan's east coast in mid-August, operating with a Chinese coast guard ship and a research vessel, the first known sighting of the militia in those waters. He asked whether the navy or the coast guard would fire "the first shot" if a militia vessel entered Taiwan's 12-nautical-mile territorial sea.
"Our current division of labor is that if these militia fishing boats cross the line at all, it is the same as with the coast guard ships: the coast guard acts first as the main law-enforcement unit to expel them, and the navy assists under our support agreement with them," Koo said, according to Radio Taiwan International. The navy and coast guard track the militia using their own databases and joint surveillance, he said. Taiwan's Central News Agency and the Liberty Times reported the same division of labor, and Liberty Times rendered his broader point as: Chinese militia boats and the coast guard "are part of the armed forces, and if they cooperate in related military operations at sea, the defense ministry will respond together with the coast guard."
Why the distinction matters
China's "gray zone" pressure relies on vessels that are not warships: coast guard cutters, research ships and fishing boats crewed as a militia. Meeting such vessels with a coast guard keeps an encounter a law-enforcement matter; meeting them with the navy would make it a military one. Koo's answer keeps both readings: the vessels are military in what they are, but Taiwan will meet them with law enforcement unless they act as part of a military operation. Taiwan has meanwhile been drawing its coast guard closer to the navy. On October 1, President Lai Ching-te promoted a navy officer, Yuan Sheng-hua, to vice admiral to serve as the coast guard's deputy director general, the first navy vice admiral in that post, and said the two services must work together more closely.
Beijing's response
China rejects Taiwan's framing of the waters themselves. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on October 12 that the waters off Taiwan's east coast belonged to China and its activities there were "beyond reproach." The U.S. State Department had called China's maritime activity off Taiwan's east coast "deeply destabilizing." The same week, China announced live-fire drills in five sea areas from the South China Sea to the Bohai Sea, none around Taiwan; Koo said Taiwan's preliminary assessment was that they were coastal artillery exercises, and Taiwan's port authority said the nearest zone was 159 nautical miles away. China's defense ministry said President Lai was exaggerating the threat from China and trying to "seek independence through force."
Quotations from Chinese-language sources were translated by Profoundd. Sources: Central News Agency, October 12, 2026; Liberty Times, October 12; Radio Taiwan International via Yahoo News Taiwan, October 12; Taiwan News, October 12; Taipei Times (Reuters), October 13; Focus Taiwan (CNA), August 2; Taipei Times, October 12; Storm Media, October 8.
