TAIPEI: Taiwan’s military said it mistakenly fired a supersonic anti-ship missile on Friday that hit a fishing boat, killing one and injuring three people, on the day rival China was celebrating the Communist Party’s anniversary.

The 500-ton patrol boat Chinchiang was undergoing an inspection inside a military base when the Hsiung Feng III missile was fired and landed about 40 nautical miles (75 kilometres) away in waters off the islands of Penghu near Taiwan, the official Central News Agency said.

The Defence Ministry said the missile penetrated a nearby Taiwanese fishing boat, killing its captain and injuring three crew members. A preliminary investigation showed that missile operators likely failed to follow proper procedures, CNA said. A full investigation was under way, while the navy sent a helicopter and boats to search for the missile, the report said.

The firing coincided with Beijing’s celebrations of the 95th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Communist Party. Chinese President Xi Jinping, also the party’s top leader, delivered a speech calling for peaceful development of relations between Beijing and Taipei.

Tensions across the strait have escalated since Tsai Ing-wen of a pro-independence party was elected president earlier this year. Tsai has refused to endorse the concept of a single Chinese nation, and Beijing cut off contact with Taiwan’s liaison office when she was inaugurated in May. Beijing sees Taiwan as a renegade province after a civil war, although the island has functioned as an independent country and does not acknowledge Beijing’s claim of authority over it. The navy said the missile, which has a range of 300 kilometres, went through the trawler, but did not explode, nor did it sink the fishing vessel.

Television images showed the upper part of the cabin, where the captain was when the boat was hit, scorched and destroyed.

The navy said that the staff sergeant who launched the missile had accidentally chosen “war mode” and “missile loading mode” during the practice drill.

“Our initial investigation found that the operation was not done in accordance with normal procedure,” Vice Admiral Mei Chia-shu told reporters, adding that a further investigation was under way. The accident has prompted angry calls from members of parliament for the defence minister to resign.

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which handles China policy, said it had notified Beijing of the incident through a quasi-official body.

Official communications between the council and its Chinese counterpart have effectively been frozen by Beijing over Taiwan’s new government refusing to recognise the “one China” concept, agreed by Beijing and Taiwan’s then-ruling Nationalists in 1992.

“At a time when the mainland repeatedly stressed it wants to sustain peaceful development of the cross-strait ties on the political foundation of ‘92 consensus’, I felt the influence from the event could be very severe,” said the head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing Zhang Zhijun.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2016