video leak on YouTube of Chinese trawler incident.

Disagree, when someone tries to capture your ship and crew illegally, you have every right to resist. And The Japanese may very well have rammed his ship during the incident. If you talk about compensation, what about illegal and forced seizure and detainment.

So you're admitting he did deliberately ram the CG vessels and that it was no accident?

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No, I cant say for certain if he did or not but the Captain has every right to defend himself and his crew from capture and he is not the one who started it.

Who here has said the trawler "chased down" the CG vessels? It was being observed at close proximity whilst being called on to stop - the CG vessels weren't trying to run away from it.

This video at around 1 minute 6 seconds shows the trawler make a port turn into the CG vessel that was sailing next to it. The CG vessel had no opportunity to move out of the way.

Then there's this video showing the trawler at 40 seconds onwards showing the trawler making another port turn to hit a CG ship in its stern.

There's no confusion, it's clear that the trawler makes two turns to hit the CG ship(s).

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The Japanese had plenty of opportunities to move away from the very start. And we dont know what kind of stunts they pulled while trying to stop the trawler.

Vow, look like this is a very hot topic. There are four pages of posts after only one day.

As Airsuperiority suggested, we need somebody who is experienced in marine-time affair to give a fair comment about who crashed into who. As for who was right or wrong, I think this depends on their stands. If the Chinese think that the water belong to them then there were right to do everything, and if the Japanese think that it is their water, what they do is nothing wrong.

Mr T said:

If the captain had said something like "after being chased for x period of time, I got angry and decided to teach the Japanese coastguard a lesson" or "my rudder jamed and I was originally too ashamed to admit that I caused the accident", I might not judge him too harshly. But he hasn't.

All I have is footage that shows the Chinese boat turned into the CG ships. I'm not going to say the captain was a violent thug, a spy or whatever, but unless I hear a direct explanation from him or his representatives, I'm not going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Also it's not true that only a snippet of footage is available. As far as I know there are several videos, more like half an hour in total.

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I did a quick search in the net, but couldn't seemed to find anything on what the Captain or his crews said... but I read somewhere in the above threads that one of the crew had mentioned that the trawler had been chased by the Japanese CG for quite sometime in the Phoenix Channel (or something like that) and the Japanese are making very aggressive moves which finally ended with the collision (first collision)... I have no explanation for the second collision but it might be because the trawler was already damaged and had somehow lost control for the second collision (I don't know.)

The truth is... yes there are videos (lots of them even) but we didn't see it... and there is none on net except for the few minutes footage that we saw on youtube.

Well... to me that few minutes of footages are not definitive... and unless we saw the entirety of the video of the incident from the start to the collision, nothing is certain.

I am not standing at the Chinese side or the Japanese side. I am just saying that we should keep a cool head and not send out any judgement on this incident because we are all outsiders and had no assess to the actual evidences... except for the few minutes of footage which might have been leaked out from whatever party with their own agenda.

And unless we have the full evidences and testamonies from the official Japanese side and the Chinese side, then we can continue this debate without biasing towards either party.

(edit: and maybe the Chinese captain did present his case but it was not found anywhere on the net. Why? remember the video footage that we saw are 'leaked' it is not shown by the Japanese official. And there might not be any 'leak' from the Chinese side, for whatever reason - tight security, internet control, etc...

or maybe it truely is the chinese trawler chasing down and ramming their boat at the Japanese's CG... my point is... we do not know. There are not enough evidence on our side to present any of the case for whichever party).

SampanViking said:

If you are a fisherman, then your boat is your primary asset.

No way is someone going to deliberately damage that asset as not only is there an immediate risk to life and limb both in the incident itself and when crossing water to reach a home port, but the cost and time of repair is of itself prohibitive.

It is; in most instances, far cheaper to pay a fine and lose your catch than risk your boat!!

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You know, that is an EXCELLENT point, Sampan. Why would a simple fisherman risk the means of his livelihood like that?

Mr.T said:

Sure, if you're dispassionate and acting rationally. Fishermen are human and do irrational things, just like the rest of us.

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In other words, the fisherman did it because he was sick and tired of being harassed by the Japanese patrol vessels.

solarz said:

You know, that is an EXCELLENT point, Sampan. Why would a simple fisherman risk the means of his livelihood like that?

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I wonder if you ever heard news around the world that fishermen were caught due to fishing in other countries' water. Fishing in open sea is naturally dangerous; storms, pirates and caught by other countries' authorities. See, they still have to go to sea for their livelihood.

SteelBird said:

Vow, look like this is a very hot topic. There are four pages of posts after only one day.

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You betcha...

As Airsuperiority suggested, we need somebody who is experienced in marine-time affair to give a fair comment about who crashed into who.

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Ahemm.. that could be me. Although I have never piloted a vessel I do know this >>>> when a military or police vessel hails you to yield or stop you do so. If you don't you could wind up like the N.Korean ship did in 2001.

As for who was right or wrong, I think this depends on their stands. If the Chinese think that the water belong to them then there were right to do everything, and if the Japanese think that it is their water, what they do is nothing wrong.

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Exactly...

Any chance that the Chinese boat simply wanted to escape and the Japanese patrol ship tried to stop it by stopping in it's path? This is a tactic often employed by police cars (at least in movies).

Ok... since everyone is so interested in the blame game. Let us analysis this again...

1) The Japanese CG being a government body representing the Japanese government so during the interception of the 'illegal' chinese trawler would confirmed maintained a constant contact with their headquarter. Do we have the content of this radio conversation? Only when we have this conversation content would we actually know if the CG acted on its own initiative or authorised to act by their headquarter.

2) when the CHinese trawler was being targeted and chased, the Chinese might have maintained a radio conversation to whoever... did they do that conversation? Did the chinese actually sent out SOS distress call when they are targeted by the Japanese? If so... unless we have this radio conversation or SOS signal (approximately the time of the signal) we couldn't determine if the Chinese actually feel themselves being threatened. Of course the Chinese might not have this equipment too (so we wouldn't know) but I think they actually did have some sort of communication devices on board.

3) Who was taking the video? Is it a standard procedure for Japanese CG to do that. During the video footage that we saw, only the sound of the Japanese seemed excited or panicking... the way they walked calmly on the deck didn't actually show that they are pretty much under attack. At least that is not what anyone - trained or untrained would react even if they are in a bigger ship and was attacked.

Well... and not to mention the water trails behind the CG ship before the first collision, seemed pretty much like it was steered towards the path of the trawler. But the second collision seemed pretty much like the Chinese steered purposely to knock at the side of the CG ship which was very suspicious.

That... and all the questions on why would a fisherman risk his livihoods and all the life of his crews to purposedly knock into the Japanese ship? And after knocking once... instead of running off as would normal people do, they chose to close in and knock a second time on the side of the CG ship (what are they trying to achieve). Plus where is the rest of the video?

Well... see... there are plenty of unanswered questions which brought us to the 'Motive' of both the Japanese and Chinese in this incident.

bd popeye said:

Ahemm.. that could be me. Although I have never piloted a vessel I do know this >>>> when a military or police vessel hails you to yield or stop you do so. If you don't you could wind up like the N.Korean ship did in 2001.

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I will always concede to your expertise in the field, but I don't believe the fishing trawler had an obligation to follow orders from the Japanese navy.
When it comes to actions in disputed territory the only thing that should matter is responsible use of the sea.
In this case the Japanese was clearly being irresponsible with their own lives and assets(Albeit negligible because they have far superior hardware) and endangering that of others.

Mr T said:

There was no need to "chase" the CG ships as they were already near to each other.

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Which goes back to my assessment that the Japanese wanted this to happen and was the side responsible for creating the dangerous situation.

Mr T said:

Sure, if you're dispassionate and acting rationally. Fishermen are human and do irrational things, just like the rest of us.

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And who is responsible for pulling dangerous maneuvers for long period of time causing a lot of stress for the poor fisherman?

Mr T said:

They're not significant because the videos that the screenshots were taken from show the trawler making a port turn to collide with the CG ship, instead of turning to starboard, which would have avoided a hit.

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The trawler captain could have avoided the collision, but so could the Japanese ships, all they have to do is maintain a safe and responsible distance from the trawler, far easier then making split second decisions while other people are pulling dangerous maneuvers.

Bottom line is, if we leave out all the territorial dispute, the Japanese ships should have been arrested for irresponsible use of the sea causing danger to others, they did enough to warrant it long before the collisions occurred.

Oh, there is one thing that seems nobody has ever mentioned about; the Jap CG ship was far out speed the trawler. With this, the ball was on the Jap's foot and the Chinese trawler had no choice at all. You can see that after the first collision, the CG got far away from the trawler. But then, it turned to cut into the trawler's way and led to the second collision.