North Korea starts capturing Chinese Fishing Boats! Chinese fishermen being held!

[Nightsky]

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Chi...464/story.html

that's is just one, four days ago there were a lot more news about it in Chinese news media there was a lot of heated rhetoric and talk of use of force should the philippines push China further if the philippines continued to violated China's water..

Yeah, and in your words, hot rhetoric makes for an imminent war. Alright, you have an agenda to bring forward. In your own interest, do it more discreet...

[Reditalianwolf]

only thing is from some of the current reports is the fishing boats were inside Chinese waters at the time they were boarded, also this does not seem to be a take and arrest situation the fact that the Chinese goverment has not released a full press statement on this besides that they have made contact with the North over the mater and the fact the North has not made any mention on state TV that patrol ships had detained some fishing boats operating illegally in Norths waters seems to indicate even the North Koreans are not sure whats going on also if this a Naval unit that went out of control and is operating on its own accord it could be strong sign that Kim is not maintaining control but things are deteriorating in the North and the North does not want to mention it on state TV..
The fact that it sounds like the captors have threatened the crews lives indicates its not the goverment that's holding the crew in the North since even as desperate as Kim may be to strengthen his power grasp and make himself look strong I dont think he would authorize the killing of Chinese crews since that would force China to cut back even more on aid and what it does with the North..

We've already seen how flexible it's the NK opinion of territorial waters... i don't wonder if they can consider a ship fishing "soon" their waters as a poaching.
And we've only the words of the chinese that obviously will never admit how far they went close to NK waters.
And about the "NK regine falling" ... it's 20years that we kept reading it... or well, from the end of the Korean War if we kept listening all the SK kept saying...
It's not more simple that NK don't want make a mess about this thing and kept a low profile of all the fact without giving news of it? I don't remember reading in KCNA when some time ago a NK guard shot and killed some chineses..
Simply because the NK doesn't want make seems the thing official and endanger too much the situation...
And about the threatening ...it's not maybe more reasonable that they said "Pay a bail/fine for both crew and ships or we will condemn in a NK court" it's seems quiet a logic action in such situation... more then speculations of North Korean/Chinese pirates on gunboats without no evidence except the words of those directly involved.
There are pretty photos of NK patrol boats and guardboats on Yalo and on the Chinese/NK borders... and they've not supposed to cellphone every time at Kim-III to issues of protection of fisheries. Probably the issue is under investigation by authorities and Kim-III sent some someone from Pyongyang to check that the situation does not becomes a crisis

[ISNJH]

Yeah, and in your words, hot rhetoric makes for an imminent war. Alright, you have an agenda to bring forward. In your own interest, do it more discreet...

I am not saying there was going to be an imminent war between China and Philippines, only that the threat of force against the philippines that appeared in state owned newspapers only appeared in print because the goverment approved the press statements otherwise they would not have been posted, And I do not have an agenda all I am saying is that one would expect more of an outcry from China over their fishermen being grabbed in a more provocative way by the North Korean's and now there seems that there may be some of a threat to the fishermen life's and still China is basically keeping quiet about it.

[ISNJH]

This may explain why China is keeping quiet about it..
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/wo...nmen.html?_r=2

There were conflicting accounts about where the fishing boats originated. Most said they were from the city of Dalian in the northeast, but on Thursday an engineer from the Wenzhou Engineering Survey Institute, in the southern province of Zhejiang, sent messages on Twitter and on China’s Sina Weibo microblog service saying the boats were from his institute and asking the public to pressure Beijing to take action.

“I have two appeals,” the engineer, Lu Zichuan, wrote. “First, release our people safely, this is most important; second, release the boats.”

If they were doing work for the survey institute it may explain why the North honed in on these three ships and took them esp if they were starting to do surveying in North Korean waters.

[juxtapose]

It seems to me that almost everything about this situation is speculation, except for the fact that some Chinese boats/personnel have been captured. What the Chinese were doing there, who captured them, why, and what is being done on both sides, is all still unclear. A few thoughts to add to the circle jerk:

-It would surprise me greatly if the NK captors did not have some level of support/sanction from at least some part of the government. Given the nature of the regime, if these actions were completely unsupported, the North Koreans involved would, in all likelihood, already be digging holes (probably for themselves) at some concentration camp. Certainly it could not have gone as far as the demand of "ransom" or "fine" (depending on one's perspective), if such a demand has indeed been made. Piracy in NK can only be state-sponsored, because there is nowhere that they can go that is free of the long arm of the regime, and no possible outcome that doesn't end with a round in the back of the head.

This is why, if I had to make a guess, I would speculate that the NK parties believe that the Chinese parties were doing something they shouldn't (e.g. illegal fishing or surveying), especially given the delicacy of the relationship with China.

-What did surprise me somewhat is that the incident has not already been quickly resolved/covered up by the two countries. There have been more than a few observers (including here at MP.net) who take the view that 1) NK sees the relationship with China as paramount, its lifeline, and 2) China views NK as its "buffer" that it would support at all costs. Is the proximity of "lips and teeth" (a phrase that has been used to demonstrate the closeness of the two regimes) overrated, or not what it used to be?

I cannot imagine this type of incident playing out in such very public view when Kim Il-Sung or even Kim Jong-Il were alive. It's somewhat tempting to see this as a tea leaf that requires reading, in the way that used to be done with great concentration during the days of the Cold War.

[EdisonTrent]

Hopefully NK-China friction doesn't set off the blitzkrieg to the Yalu.