File photo of China Coast Guard vessel patrolling waters near Diaoyu Dao on April 27, 2024 Photo: VCG

The China Coast Guard (CCG) said on Friday that China carried out patrols around Diaoyu Dao for a total of 357 days in 2025, underscoring the country's sustained maritime rights protection efforts.

The remarks were made during a special maritime law enforcement briefing held on Friday morning marking the fifth anniversary of the implementation of the coastguard law. Zhang Jianming, head of the law enforcement department of the CCG, said that over the past five years, the CCG has deployed vessels more than 550,000 times and aircraft more than 6,000 times to carry out maritime rights protection and law enforcement missions.

Zhang said that the CCG organized 134 patrols in the territorial waters of Diaoyu Dao over the past five years, with patrol days reaching 357 in 2025 alone.

Zhang stressed that the CCG has resolutely safeguarded China's maritime sovereignty, effectively stabilized the maritime situation through fulfilling its duties and responsibilities, and firmly implemented the decisions and deployments of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The CCG has adhered to a situation-based approach and acted strictly in accordance with the law to prevent and regulate infringement and provocations by relevant countries, effectively deterred the so-called "Taiwan independence" separatist activities, and resolutely safeguarded China's territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests.

"Over the past five years, we have conducted regular rights protection patrols in the East China Sea, South China Sea and Yellow Sea, carried out law enforcement patrols in waters surrounding the Taiwan island and its affiliated islands, and strengthened law enforcement control in the territorial waters of Huangyan Dao and surrounding areas," Zhang said.

Zhang added that the CCG has continued to innovate operational strategies, optimize control models, and strengthen capacity building, enabling timely detection, rapid response and effective handling of foreign infringement activities. These efforts have achieved new breakthroughs in integrated maritime and aerial patrols around Diaoyu Dao, shaped a new posture in maritime rights protection, and established a new pattern of law-based governance of the Taiwan Straits in accordance with the one-China principle.