Vietnam says China attacked fishing boat near disputed islands

Read more on this topic in Vietnamese.

Updated Oct. 01, 2024, 03:40 a.m. ET.

Chinese personnel boarded a Vietnamese fishing boat off the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea and beat the crew with iron bars, seriously injuring four of them, after a chase by Chinese ships near the islands that both countries claim, a Vietnamese official said.

The boat’s skipper, Nguyen Thanh Bien, told the Tien Phong news site that his boat was chased on Sunday by two ships with hull numbers 101 and 301. He said they sent three smaller boats to trap his vessel in a pincer maneuver, enabling men in camouflage to climb aboard and attack the crew

“I tried to run towards the bow of the ship, however, two people held me and attacked me so hard that I lost consciousness. I woke up about an hour later,” he said.

Bien radioed the Vietnamese border guard on Sunday afternoon, telling them several crew members had broken arms and legs, while the others had unspecified injuries. He also asked for help from Vietnam’s regional Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Center.

The chairman of the People's Committee of Binh Chau Commune in Quang Ngai province, Phung Ba Vuong, wrote on Facebook  that “more than 30 armed individuals,” on the Chinese vessels that intercepted the Vietnamese boat, boarded it and brutally beat its crew.

Neither Chinese authorities nor its media had commented on the incident at time of publication. China claims almost the whole of the South China Sea as its territory, including the Paracel islands. China calls the archipelago the Xisha islands, Vietnam calls it the Hoang Sa.

Crewman Huynh Tien Cong (pictured above) told the Tien Phong the attackers beat him and other crew members with meter-long steel bars, breaking his arms and legs.

“They attacked relentlessly, we didn’t know where they were attacking, we didn’t dare to resist, we just lay there and endured the beating,” Cong said.

“When they finished, they forced the remaining fishermen to the bow of the ship, forcing them to hold their heads with their hands and kneel down, then used the tarpaulin to cover the fishermen. They couldn’t see anything.” 

The fishing boat arrived at Sa Ky port in Vietnam’s Quang Ngai province on Monday, and four injured fishermen were taken to hospital for emergency treatment, the People's Committee chairman, Phung, said.

“Coordinating agencies are currently investigating the incident,” he said. 

“These extremely brutal actions are strongly condemned. We protest China's actions.”

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Occupied by China

Vietnamese border guards who spoke to the crew told media that most of the equipment on the boat was smashed and taken away along with the catch of about 4 tons. They estimated the damage and lost catch to be worth about 500 million Vietnamese dong (US$20,300).

The Paracel archipelago of about 130 islands and reefs lies 400 kilometers (249 miles) off Vietnam’s eastern coast and a similar distance from China’s Hainan island.

Fifty years ago, China seized the islands after the so-called Battle of the Paracels on Jan. 19, 1974, in which 74 Vietnamese soldiers were killed.

The then Republic of Vietnam, also known as South Vietnam, at that time claimed sovereignty of the islands but only had a small presence there. 

China has occupied and developed the Paracels ever since the battle.

Woody Island is the headquarters of Sansha City, which China established in 2012 to administer all the islands it claims in the South China Sea.

While China claims almost all of the South China Sea, parts of it are also claimed by Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.

Vietnam, while marking the anniversary of the Battle of the Paracels in January, denounced the use of force to settle territorial disputes.

“Every act of threatening or using force in international relations, especially the use of force to resolve territorial disputes between states, is in complete contravention of the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter, and in serious violation of international law,” Vietnamese government spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said at the time. 

Translated by RFA Staff. Edited by Mike Firn.

Updated with comments from crew members.