Taiwan Bolsters Pratas Patrol With 100-Tonne Boat — SkimNews
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- Taiwan's Coast Guard formally stationed a newly built 100-tonne-class patrol boat at Pratas after completing a wharf project in July, "significantly enhancing" nearshore patrol and immediate mobile response capacity.
- Taiwan is deploying large patrol vessels on a regular basis around Pratas, which the Coast Guard called "multi-layered deterrence and mobile enforcement capabilities" in its Sept 23 announcement.
- Pratas Islands sit more than 400km from Taiwan — a distance security experts flag as leaving the outpost vulnerable to Chinese attack — and security is handled by the Coast Guard rather than the military.
- Chinese coast guard ships have increased patrols near Pratas, with the most recent incursion earlier in September; China's Taiwan Affairs Office did not respond to a request for comment on Taiwan's upgrade.
- Taiwan's Coast Guard has confiscated nine Chinese fishing boats near Pratas since the start of 2026 and repurposed them for reef patrol and marine conservation work in the national park's largely untouched reefs.
- Taiwan also controls Itu Aba in the Spratly Islands and claims nearby uninhabited Zhongzhou Reef, its other South China Sea holdings, underscoring the archipelago-wide stakes of the Pratas upgrade.
Why it matters: Taiwan is converting nine confiscated Chinese fishing boats seized since early 2026 into a reef-patrol and conservation fleet at Pratas — turning a sovereignty flashpoint into a self-replenishing logistical asset. The permanent stationing of the 100-tonne boat, paired with regular large-vessel deployments, materially compresses response times against a Chinese coast guard presence that has been escalating around an outpost 400km from home.
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