The Chinese government has quite the nerve to complain about the use of firearms in law enforcement operations when they are the same people that gunned down thousands of protesters in Tiananmen Square:
Two Chinese fishing boats, which were seized while illegally fishing in South Korean waters in the West Sea, arrive in the port of Incheon, west of Seoul, on Nov. 2, 2016. South Korea’s Coast Guard fired warning shots with an M60 machine gun to capture the vessels earlier in the day. No Chinese fishermen were injured and nothing was damaged. (Yonhap)
China called in a senior South Korean diplomat to lodge a formal protest against the use of a machine gun to crack down on Chinese fishing boats, Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesperson said Friday.
On Tuesday, South Korea’s Coast Guard fired 600-700 bullets from a ship-mounted M60 toward Chinese vessels that were violently interfering in the capture of two fishing boats operating illegally off the western port city of Incheon. No injuries or damage were reported.
China’s foreign ministry protested the “violent law enforcement methods used” via its spokesperson Hua Chunying during a regular press briefing.
“China is strongly against any use of violent measures by South Korea that threatens the safety of Chinese fishermen,” she said. The official added that illegal fishing should not be a reason for South Korean authorities, including its Coast Guard, to use firearms. [Yonhap]
Via a reader tip comes this news of Chinese tourists behaving badly in Jeju again:
Jeju airport is grappling with overflowing garbage from Chinese tourists.
Gates for international flights on the third floor of Jeju International Airport are teeming with rubbish from duty free goods purchased by Chinese tourists, according to Jeju newspaper Jemin Ilbo.
When tourists purchase duty free goods outside the airport, they have to pick them up from a designated area at the departure gate. The problem arises when the tourists rip the wrapping from the items at the gate before boarding, to reduce their size and weight. Then they leave the rubbish on the floor.
Staff from duty free shops and cleaners have asked Chinese tourists to use dumpsters, and even gave them garbage bags. The Korea Airports Corporation in Jeju has also taken action by increasing the number of cleaners at the gate from two to three.
“We will keep reinforcing the sanitation team at the gates for international flights,” an official from the airport told The Korea Times. [Korea Times via reader tip]
The Pirates of the Yellow Sea were in action again this week and the ROK Coast Guard decided to use warning shots to disperse them:
Two Chinese fishing boats, which were seized while illegally fishing in South Korean waters in the West Sea, arrive in the port of Incheon, west of Seoul, on Nov. 2, 2016. South Korea’s Coast Guard fired warning shots with an M60 machine gun to capture the vessels earlier in the day. No Chinese fishermen were injured and nothing was damaged. (Yonhap)
South Korea’s Coast Guard said Wednesday it has launched an investigation into two Chinese fishing vessels that were captured with the help of a large gun after the fishing boats illegally operated in the country’s exclusive economic zone earlier this week.
The boats were brought into the western port city of Incheon Wednesday afternoon. They were captured a day earlier in the Yellow Sea after the Coast Guard fired a M60 machine gun in warning.
The authorities said the gun was used to fight off some 30 other fishing boats nearby that interfered in the Coast Guard’s attempt to seize the two vessels, with some even threatening to collide with the patrol boats. No Chinese fishermen were injured and nothing was damaged in the process, according to the authorities.
The decision to use the weapon was made to safeguard the officers who had already boarded the Chinese vessels, and would have been cut off if other Chinese vessels succeeded in ramming the patrol boats that took part in the seizure operations, the Coast Guard said.
The Chinese boats had iron bars installed around the hulls and the gates to the steering house were closed to avoid entry, the authorities said.
The Coast Guard said it will interrogate the two captains and some 20 other crew members from the vessels to find out the details of the illegal fishing. It will also look into their relation with the other boats that got away. [Yonhap]
In the latest email leak involving the Hillary Clinton campaign her private views on China have been revealed and it is nothing surprising though I do like her comment about calling the Pacific Ocean the “American Sea”:
Then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shakes hands with then Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing on Sept. 5, 2012. In emails released by WikiLeaks on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2016, Clinton said the U.S. would “ring China with missile defense” if the Chinese government failed to curb North Korea’s nuclear program.
Hillary Clinton privately said the U.S. would “ring China with missile defense” if the Chinese government failed to curb North Korea’s nuclear program, a potential hint at how the former secretary of state would act if elected president.
Clinton’s remarks were revealed by WikiLeaks in a hack of the Clinton campaign chairman’s personal account. The emails include a document excerpting Clinton’s private speech transcripts, which she has refused to release.
A section on China features several issues in which Clinton said she confronted the Chinese while leading the U.S. State Department.
China has harshly criticized the U.S. and South Korea’s planned deployment of a missile-defense system against North Korea, which conducted its fifth nuclear test this year. But Clinton said she told Chinese officials that the U.S. might deploy additional ships to the region to contain the North Korean missile threat.
If North Korea successfully obtains a ballistic missile, it could threaten not just American allies in the Pacific, “but they could actually reach Hawaii and the west coast theoretically,” Clinton said.
“We’re going to ring China with missile defense. We’re going to put more of our fleet in the area,” Clinton said in a 2013 speech. “So China, come on. You either control them or we’re going to have to defend against them.”
China is North Korea’s economic lifeline and the closest thing it has to a diplomatic ally, and has been criticized by the U.S. and others for not doing enough to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions. Chinese officials and state media have responded by saying that North Korea is not solely China’s responsibility, and that Beijing has limited influence with secretive leader Kim Jong Un’s hard-line communist regime.
Clinton also privately criticized China’s position on another sensitive issue, the South China Sea. China claims almost the entirety of the strategically vital waterbody and has lashed out at an international tribunal’s July ruling rejecting its claims.
Clinton told a different audience in 2013 that by China’s logic, the U.S. after World War II could have labeled the Pacific Ocean the “American Sea.”
“My counterpart sat up very straight and goes, ‘Well, you can’t do that,'” she said. “And I said, ‘Well, we have as much right to claim that as you do. I mean, you claim (the South China Sea) based on pottery shards from, you know, some fishing vessel that ran aground in an atoll somewhere.” [Stars & Stripes]
I agree with the concept that a “grand bargain” with China is the only way to end the Kim regime’s nuclear weapons program, but I don’t think what the professor is recommending that the US offers in return would cause the Chinese to turn on the Kim regime:
The United States should seek a grand bargain with China that commits Beijing to use its leverage over North Korea to end its nuclear program in exchange for American concessions like the scrapping of a decision to deploy the THAAD missile defense system in South Korea, a U.S. expert said Wednesday.
Amitai Etzioni, a George Washington University professor, made the point in an article in the National Interest, stressing that the “greatest threat” to U.S. security that the new American president will have to confront is North Korea.
The professor said that efforts to simply “urge” or “shame” China into acting won’t work.
“The costs to China if it were to move to rein in North Korea are considerable. China views living with a Communist-ruled nuclear-armed state on its border as preferable to the chaos of its collapse,” he said.
Instead, China should be offered a deal based on “differential salience,” which means that each side should get what’s important to its national interests from the other side by giving up what’s less important.
“China might well have a high interest in gaining assurances that if the North Korean regime collapses and the two Koreas are unified, the United States will not move its troops to the border with China,” the professor said. “This is a no- or low-cost proposition for the United States, because once the North Korean nuke program folds or the regime collapses, the United States should be quite content not to move its troops north.”
He also said that the U.S. could offer not to deploy THAAD because once the North’s s nuclear missile program is no longer an acute threat, the United States should be quite willing not to place THAAD in South Korea. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but for the Chinese to turn on the Kim regime I think they would want something extremely significant in return that meets their security interests. North Korea is a buffer state for them that can also be counted on as a third actor if conflict with Taiwan for example was to occur to tie up US forces. This is a huge strategic benefit from the Chinese perspective. That is why I think the complete removal of USFK from the peninsula is the only thing that would get the Chinese attention.
From the Chinese perspective if the Kim regime is removed and the Koreas are united what other reason would the US have to keep troops in Korea other than to threaten China? I don’t think the Chinese would even go for this proposal and would push for more US concessions in regards to Taiwan to really strike a deal, but I think any proposal would have to include the removal of US troops from Korea.
Maybe I am wrong, does anyone else have any differing opinions on what it would take to strike a deal with China?
It looks like this how the ROK government has decided to show its citizens that is doing something about the amount of crime committed by Chinese tourists on Jeju island:
Captured image from Beijing News website
According to the Beijing News and other local Chinese newspapers on Sunday, over 100 Chinese tourists were refused entrance to Jeju Island by Korean immigration authorities over China’s week-long national holiday last week, and the tourists were reportedly detained at the Jeju International Airport for hours, some even days, before returning to China.
“A number of tourists were refused entry for various reasons, and detained [at the airport],” the Beijing News reported on Sunday. “The room contained simple facilities, like electric outlets, and had no bed or blankets.”
The Chinese paper reported that a Chinese citizen surnamed Zhang and his wife were detained at the airport because they could not provide papers for their accommodation reservations at the island.
The paper added that over 100 Chinese tourists were detained at Jeju International Airport during the national holidays, staying at most five days. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
The gloves may finally be coming off after the sinking of a ROK Coast Guard speed boat by the illegal Chinese fishing boats this past week:
China’s foreign ministry on Wednesday asked South Korea to stay calm in dealing with Chinese boats illegally fishing in the neighboring country’s waters a day after Seoul said it will be more firm with lawbreakers.
South Korea’s decision to strengthen law enforcement, even authorizing the use of firearms, is not a fundamental solution to the problem and will only cause more trouble, said Chinese ministry spokesman Geng Shuang during a regular press briefing.
The remark was made a day after South Korea’s Coast Guard said it plans to actively use force, including crew-served weapons, against boats and fishermen that violently interfere with the authorities’ execution of their duties.
The announcement by the Seoul government came a few days after a 4.5-ton Coast Guard speedboat was sunk Friday during an operation against illegal fishing in the Yellow Sea when a 100-ton Chinese boat intentionally rear-ended it.
The Chinese ministry, however, said the Chinese boat was legitimately operating in a zone where fishing was allowed.
South Korea should refrain from using excessive force that could harm the safety of Chinese nationals, the spokesman added. [Yonhap]
What would the Chinese government do if the ROK had fishing boats parked right off the coast of Hainan or the Paracel Islands in southern China and their coast guard personnel were attacked? I am willing to bet they would not show the restraint the ROK Coast Guard has so far shown.
You just have to love the hypocrites in the Russian and Chinese military who come out against THAAD deployment to South Korea with comments like this:
Washington was using the North’s actions as a pretext to gain military superiority over China, Chinese general Cai Jun told defence officials at a briefing on the forum’s sidelines.
Deploying the system in South Korea, he said, was “not conducive to the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula”, he said, adding “it has increased the risk of military conflict in the region”. [AFP]
You know what is not conducive to “peace and stability” North Korea continuous provocations, missile firings and nuclear tests.
Beijing fears that THAAD could be used against its own missiles, effectively undermining its nuclear deterrence capabilities against the US.
From a global perspective, Cai said, the US’s insistence on developing its missile defence programme could trigger “an arms race at a high level, even to outer space.”
It is pretty ironic that the Chinese are worried about an arms race when their unilateral territorial grabs in the South China Sea and the East China Sea is causing an arms race with neighboring countries in the reasons.
Speaking on a panel during the forum, Russian deputy defence minister Anatoly Antonov also slammed the agreement.
“We are concerned about the attempts of certain nations to exploit the complex situation in the Korean peninsula,” he said, “pumping this sub-region with clearly excessive defence capabilities.”
The decision has “aggravated regional tension” and “adds problems to solving the situation.”
You can read more at the link, but if the Russians are so concerned about aggravating regional tensions and adding problems then why don’t they do something to stop North Korea nuclear and missile programs that are the main cause of all the regional tensions and problems?
