Vietnamese officials: Chinese patrol boat seizes fisherman's catch

Feb 8, 2010, 5:54 GMT

Hanoi - A Chinese patrol boat stole a Vietnamese fishing catch last week, Vietnamese officials said Monday.

Trinh Phuoc, head of a Vietnamese Coastal Border Guard post in the central province of Quang Ngai, said a fishing boat with a 16-man crew was stopped February 2 by a Chinese patrol near the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.

The boat's owner and captain, Nguyen Chin, reported that 10 to 20 Chinese, some of them in uniform, boarded his boat and seized about 500 kilograms of fish, a navigation device, spare parts and tools.

Vietnamese officials said they were not yet sure how they would respond.

'We don't know what to do about this news,' said Vo Van Huyen, chairman of the Ly Son Island's People's Committee. 'We have reported it to higher authorities.'

The online newspaper VnExpress quoted Chin as saying the Chinese had dumped his fresh water supply into the sea and poured water into the crew's rice supplies before telling him to return home.

Over the past year, Chinese naval patrols have seized several Vietnamese fishing boats and detained fishermen in the South China Sea. In August and October, they arrested fishermen who tried to shelter in the disputed Paracel Islands during storms.

Tensions over sovereignty in the South China Sea have risen since last year when countries submitted their official territorial claims to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Beijing rejected submissions by Malaysia, Vietnam and other countries as violating its own claims in the area.

The area surrounding the Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea is believed to contain substantial undersea oil and mineral deposits.