Category: China

The ROK government is under increasing pressure to do something about the increasing number of illegal Chinese fishing boats that continue to violate South Korea’s sovereign waters:

The government is under pressure to come up with stronger measures to stop Chinese fishermen from operating in Korean waters illegally.

The calls come three days after a Coast Guard speed boat sank after being rammed by a Chinese fishing vessel.

The 4.5-ton boat was one of two Korean vessels dispatched to waters near Socheong Island where 40 Chinese boats were fishing illegally. The Chinese boat weighed about 400 tons.

Rep. Chung Jin-suk, the floor leader of the ruling Saenuri Party, demanded stern action from the administration. “The government should find the Chinese vessels that escaped and bring them to justice,” he said.

Noting it is about maritime sovereignty, Chung said, “It is not news that Chinese fishermen use steel pipes and knives against coastguards during crackdowns. I wonder if the Korean authorities have become powerless.”

He said his party would consider stationing more Coast Guard officers in the West Sea.

Rep. Woo Sang-ho, the floor leader of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea, echoed Chung. “The violent, illegal activities by Chinese fishing boats are beyond a tolerable level. I would say they are not fishermen but pirates.” [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but maybe the ROK Coast Guard should treat them as pirates and sink them on the spot if they don’t comply with demands?

If the Japanese made such a film that gloats about marching into Seoul I am willing to bet the reaction from South Korea would be much different.  However, since it is China making a film gloating about marching into Seoul I bet there will hardly be any notice:

A teaser for a patriotic film that features Chinese veterans of the Korean war has ignited controversy in China and revived debate over the country’s controversial role in the deadly conflict six decades ago.  It has also triggered calls on Chinese social media to boycott My War, by Hong Kong director Oxide Pang and due to premiere on Thursday, as some internet users said the film treated poorly historical facts of the war that killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers from China and more from the two Koreas, which remain divided and hostile to each other.

The two-minute teaser shows a group of elderly Chinese tourists on a bus in Seoul as a young Korean tour guide welcomes them on their first trip to South Korea’s capital city.

An old lady interrupts, telling the guide they had visited before in the past.

“Lady, we came here before, about 60 years ago,” an old man says.

“We held the Chinese flag and came here,” another man explains.

The tour guide, wearing traditional Korean dress, looks puzzled, asking how they would hold the Chinese flag in Seoul.

The tourists tell the guide she will realise how they did so after she sees My War.

“Resist US aggression and aid Korea, protect our home and defend our country,” the tourists chant at the end of the teaser.

The slogan is widely used in Communist propaganda to describe China’s role in coming to North Korea’s aid in 1950, resulting in the deaths of between 149,000 and 400,000 Chinese soldiers.  [South China Morning Post via a reader tip]

You can read the rest at the link, but if someone made that such comments to me I would have responded if they brought their Chinese flag back with him when they ran with their tails between their legs out of the city from the United Nations forces?

Anyway here is a Youtube clip of the movie’s controversial promotion video:

Better a financial crisis in China than a nuclear war in Korea. https://t.co/9PIxjuQZ5W

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) October 1, 2016

Maybe the ROK is taking the approach President Duerte takes for drug dealers and applying it to Chinese fishermen who continue to plague the country’s waters:

Three Chinese fishermen were killed on Thursday in a fire that broke out on their boat when South Korean coastguard men trying to apprehend them for illegal fishing threw flash grenades into a room they were hiding in, a South Korean official said.

Disputes over illegal fishing are an irritant in relations between China and U.S. ally South Korea, even as their economic relations grow close. They also share concern about North Korea’s nuclear weapon and missile programs.

The three men were believed to have suffocated, a coastguard official in the South Korean port city of Mokpo said, adding that the incident was being investigated.

The fire broke out in the boat’s steering room, the official, who is not authorized to speak with media and declined to be identified, told Reuters by telephone.

South Korean authorities were questioning the 14 surviving crew and coastguard members involved in the operation, the official added.

China’s Foreign Ministry said it had lodged a protest with Seoul about the incident.

Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily news briefing Beijing was also urging South Korea to hold a “comprehensive and objective” investigation into the incident, along with China.  [Reuters via reader tip]

You can read more at the link, but definitely compared to the past where these fishermen having actually murdered Korean Coast Guard personnel it is clear ROK authorities have taken a more aggressive stance to stop them.

Further Reading:

https://www.rokdrop.net/2014/10/korean-coast-guard-kills-chinese-fishermen-during-raid/

Over at One Free Korea there is a good posting up about how the Senate in a bi-partisan manner recently grilled State Department officials about the lack of sanctions against Chinese banks:

 

I’ve never worked in the Senate, so I wouldn’t know if that’s standard procedure there, but past hearings I’ve watched didn’t run this well. Gardner himself was in complete command of both the material and the room, and gave every appearance of being a man with limitless potential. Indeed, all of the senators were well-prepared. All, regardless of their party or tribal affiliations, asked good or excellent questions. 

In the end, however, no one can hurt you more than the people who love you. At 58:17, Senator Menendez began questioning Fried by arguing for secondary sanctions against Chinese banks. He then embarked on a well-prepared, determined, and lawyerly cross-examination of Fried about this. Pressured by Menendez’s questioning and clearly unsure of his material, Fried told Menendez that Dandong Hongxiang was a bank (not true). I don’t think Fried was lying, but he didn’t have command of the facts, and when he got out of his depth, he swam into a rip current. Mendendez pinned Fried down on his answer. Then, when his time expired, he went back and pulled Treasury’s announcement, probably talked to his staff, and confirmed that this wasn’t true. At 1:35:30, Menendez returned, rearmed. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what it’s like to have a bad day in the United States Senate.  [One Free Korea]

You can read the transcript at the link of the bad day Mr. Daniel Fried, the State Department’s Coordinator for Sanctions Policy had being grilled by the Senate.  The fact that he did not immediately know that the Treasury Department has not sanctioned any Chinese banks is worrisome.

If Donald Trump does become President I think he will find out the same frustrations many other people have had in regards to trying to get China to fix North Korea:

Donald Trump said during the first presidential debate that “China should go into North Korea” to halt that country’s nuclear program and control its unpredictable leader, Kim Jong Un.

“China should solve the problem for us,” Trump said in Monday night’s debate. “China is totally powerful when it comes to North Korea.”

While China does hold a lot of sway over its belligerent communist neighbor and ally, what the Republican candidate said is very unlikely to happen. Here’s why:

• China is North Korea’s protector, chief trading partner and economic lifeline.Although China condemned North Korea’s latest nuclear weapons test on Sept. 9 — and agreed to sanctions in response to a test in January — Beijing shows no signs that it will actually crack down on North Korea.  [USA Today]

You can read the rest at the link, but from the Chinese perspective it makes perfect sense to back North Korea.  There would have to be major strategic shifts in the region for China to remove the Kim regime.

She is probably one of many Chinese companies aiding the North Korean regime.  However, she for whatever reason may be the one being used by Beijing to show the US that the Chinese are “doing something” to rein in North Korea:

A Chinese businesswoman under U.S. scrutiny for her alleged role in aiding North Korea’s nuclear program is also a suspect in a Chinese criminal investigation into her trading business, a corporate filing shows.

Friday’s disclosure about Ma Xiaohong is the first to tie her to a criminal investigation. Police in the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning said earlier this month that they were investigating the trading firm that Ms. Ma founded, Hongxiang Industrial Development Co., for alleged “serious economic crimes,” without naming her.  (………………)

The investigation into Ms. Ma and her company appears to mark a new effort by U.S. and Chinese authorities to pursue Chinese businesses that are suspected of supporting North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program. The U.S. and China have often sparred over how best to rein in North Korea.

Earlier this month, Pyongyang conducted its fifth atomic test in a decade.

Liaoning police announced their investigation after prosecutors from the U.S. Department of Justice made two trips to Beijing last month to alert Chinese officials about alleged activities by Ms. Ma and Hongxiang Industrial, The Wall Street Journal reported this week.

The Justice Department cited alleged evidence that the businesswoman and her company had aided Pyongyang’s nuclear program and its efforts to evade United Nations and Western sanctions, according to U.S. officials.

It isn’t known if the Liaoning police probe is related to the U.S. allegations.  [Wall Street Journal]

You can read more at the link.

This deep-dive on China’s South China Sea expansion, via @tshugart3 + @CNASdc + @WarOnTheRocks worth reading in full https://t.co/ZTBeexeKHs

— Max Fisher (@Max_Fisher) September 21, 2016

Holy-shit map of the day: China has area-denial capability over most of the South China Sea https://t.co/ZTBeexeKHs pic.twitter.com/jhxhcs3mky

— Max Fisher (@Max_Fisher) September 21, 2016

China says opposes 'unhelpful' unilateral North Korea sanctions | Reuters https://t.co/sfZrYldnYS

— S. Kleine-Ahlbrandt (@ska_kongshan) September 15, 2016