The vessel’s owner, Yu Xuejun, called the Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, on May 10 to seek help, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a brief statement issued through Sina Weibo, the country’s Twitter-like microblog service. Mr. Yu was not on the boat when it was seized.

“The embassy immediately made representations to the consular affairs bureau of the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asking that North Korea release the vessel and the crew as soon as possible, and ensure the safety of the lives and property of the detained crew, as well as their legitimate rights,” the Chinese ministry statement said.

…

The Chinese media reports said the boat was seized on May 5, with 16 men onboard, and North Korean authorities demanded payment of 600,000 renminbi, equal to about $98,000, to release them and the vessel, apparently on the grounds that it was fishing in waters claimed by North Korea. The deadline for payment was Sunday, The Beijing Times newspaper said.

[Source]

China’s state-run Global Times reported on Monday that those responsible were “highly likely from the North Korean army,” with one expert speculating that North Korea may be retaliating for sanctions imposed by the United Nations in March after the rogue state’s third nuclear test. But the Guardian’s Tania Branigan speculates that local North Korean forces took on the heist to make money. The boat’s owner received a call from North Korea claiming that his boat had entered North Korean waters, she reports, though he insists the boat had not left Chinese territory:

“This is not the first time it has happened and it won’t be the last,” said Cheng Xiaohe, an expert on Sino-North Korean relations at Renmin University.

North Korean forces and Chinese fishermen often played a cat-and-mouse game, with incursions over the line by both sides, he said. Other cases had not become public because boat owners simply paid up but this time the ransom appeared to be much higher than usual.

“This issue will complicate an already troubled relationship between the two countries but I don’t think the impact will be significant or lasting. I think with the Chinese government intervention it will be settled quickly,” Cheng said.

But he added: “The Chinese side needs to rein in fishermen to make sure they stay in Chinese waters and the DPRK also needs to impose discipline on local military forces.”

[Source]

For Foreign Policy, Isaac Stone Fish doubts that the kidnappers acted with the full backing of the North Korean military command:

But if the “pirates” were actually members of the North Korean military acting in concert with Pyongyang, why the laughably small ransom? Yu told a Chinese journalist that he can’t pay the “sky-high price” of $100,000 — that may be true, but the sticker price for international incidents is usually higher than that of a luxury car. (By comparison, in 2010, the average ransom demand from Somali pirates was $5.4 million.)

It’s not the first time this has happened. A year ago almost to the day, North Koreans abducted 29 Chinese fishermen; the identity of the North Koreans, or whether they were authorities or autonomous kidnappers, remains unknown. The fishermen were returned and relieved of all their possessions, in some cases even including their clothes and the pencils in their pocket. Is the North Korean army so starved of resources that it would steal writing utensils from Chinese fishermen?

[Source]

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Iceland’s Foreign Minister Ossur Skarphedinsson signed the deal with Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng in Beijing yesterday, bringing to a close six years of talks, according to Iceland’s Foreign Ministry. Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir started a three-day visit to China yesterday, meeting her Chinese counterpart Premier Li Keqiang and President Xi Jinping.

Iceland is working on deepening ties with China that could help speed up efforts to emerge from its 2008 economic collapse, when its three-largest banks defaulted on $85 billion in debt. The north Atlantic nation is seeking to resuscitate its $14.4 billion economy by returning to the industries it once relied on for growth, such as tourism, fishing and energy.

“It’s important for Iceland to conclude pacts like this to strengthen trade following the economic collapse,” Sigurdardottir said in an interview. The free trade agreement will “increase the soundness of business transactions and presumably the interest among Chinese and Icelandic companies that are cooperating” in geothermal power.

At the same time, the President of Iceland advocated for China to play a larger role in determining the future of the Arctic, as regional governments set up the Arctic Circle, a new global forum to discuss the future of the region as it is impacted by global warming. From the Guardian:

“It is a wrong scenario to think that this will only be of concern to those people living in the Arctic. It will be a concern to every nation,” Grimsson said in an interview. “There is no country that will escape the consequences, either through rising sea levels or extreme weather patterns.”

With that in mind, Grimsson argued that oil companies and countries as far away as China, India, Singapore and South Korea should have a voice in the future of the region. At present, only the eight countries of the Arctic Council [U.S., Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and Iceland] have a say in setting policy in the region. “We realise that there are other nations in Asia and Europe that have legitimate concerns and enterprises in the Arctic and it’s important to involve them in a co-operative effort,” Grimsson said.

He made his visit to Washington as Chinese and Icelandic leaders signed a free trade agreement in Beijing that will give China a bigger foothold in the emerging region.

Grimsson said Arctic Circle would aim for a more inclusive debate about the future of the Arctic.

Nunatsiaq Online has more details on the set-up of the new Arctic Circle organization:

On April 15, the same day that Iceland threw its support to China’s bid to become an observer at the Arctic Council, Iceland’s president Olafur Ragnar Grimsson also announced the creation of a new assembly on Arctic issues.

It’s called the “Arctic Circle,” which is intended to promote “collaboration among Arctic and international partners” — these could even include “Google,” Grimsson suggested at the organization’s launch in Washington D.C.

The Arctic Circle will hold an annual talk-fest “to facilitate dialogue and build relationships to confront the Arctic’s greatest challenges,” said a news release on the new non-profit organization.

The Arctic Circle will be a place for institutions, organizations, forums, think-tanks, corporations and public associations to hold their meetings or events “without surrendering their independence or decision-making abilities.”

Before the announcement about the formation of the Arctic Circle, China has been lobbying to get observer status to the Arctic Council, and had gained the support of Norway, even after a simmering dispute over the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. As the Guardian reported in March:

China has been cosying up to Arctic countries as part of its effort to secure “permanent observer” status on the Arctic Council, an eight-country political body that decides regional policy. Norway was initially sniffy at the approaches because of the Nobel row, but appears to have changed its tune before a formal decision in May.

“There are not many areas where Norway is important to China at all, but the Arctic is one of them,” said Leiv Lunde, director of the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Lysaker, Norway. China, he added, was beginning to realise that its diplomatic boycott “is not good PR in sort of bolstering the positive image that China wants to bolster as an Arctic player”.

Currently, 80% of China’s imported energy passes through the Strait of Malacca – a crowded, heavily pirated waterway that squeezes past Singapore. Yet over the past few years, melting Arctic ice, a casualty of climate change, has turned the frigid north into a viable shipping route. The newly navigable northern sea route above Russia would cut the distance between Shanghai and northern Europe by 4,000 miles, saving medium-sized bulk carriers about two weeks and £260,000 on each journey. Three years ago, no ships made the voyage. Last year, there were 46.

Chinese ships already fish in waters surrounding the Arctic region and would easily be able to move into Arctic waters, which has become an issue for environmentalists working on protecting the region.* As global warming hits and previously frozen areas of the Arctic become accessible, preservationists are trying to establish pre-emptive rules to regulate fishing activity. From the New York Times:

Advocates of a conservation agreement say that until the new ice-free area created by global warming is fully studied, it should be preserved. Diplomats agree that the region should be protected from fishing fleets until scientists have had a chance to assess its marine populations.

“We want any fishing that takes place there to be properly managed, to maintain it for commercial purposes,” one diplomat from an Arctic nation involved in the talks said. “Are there fisheries in the future that are moving north as the waters are warming and the ice is receding? The scientists cannot say with certainty now.”

The part of the doughnut hole that is thawing most quickly in the eastern Arctic, above Alaska and the Russian region of Chukotka, is well within the range of industrial fishing fleets in Asia.

Chinese trawlers fish for krill in Antarctic waters, about 7,500 miles from China. The Arctic Ocean international zone is only about 5,000 miles from the Chinese coast, according to maps prepared by a Russian fisheries journal, Rybnye Resorsi.

Read more about China’s relations with the Arctic, Iceland and Norway, via CDT.

*Correction: This post was edited to correct the statement that Chinese boats are already fishing in the Arctic waters. No countries currently conduct commercial fishing in the Arctic Ocean. Thank you to a reader for notifying us of this fact.

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The episode comes as China’s fishing boats increasingly find themselves embroiled in both cross-border and commercial disputes. Chinese ships fish in both international waters and under bilateral fisheries agreement in the waters of other nations. They work for largely private companies or for themselves, and aren’t generally directed by Beijing.

However, in Asian waters, fishing boats have become a proxy for China’s sovereign reach in largely territorial spats. In cases farther afield, its fishing boats have been entangled in accusations of overfishing and harming local economies.

[…] China’s hunger is growing at a time when around 87% of global fisheries are seen to be at full exploitation, overexploited, or depleted, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. China like other nations has signed international agreements that allow it to fish in global waters, and some fishing experts have praised Beijing for beefing up its statistics on fishing in some areas and for raising more fish in domestic farms.

Still, a European Commission report this year said China reported just 368,000 tons of its 2010-2011 catch from the high seas compared with an estimated actual haul of 4.6 million tons.

The height of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute in the autumn saw forays into the islands’ waters by fishing boats from Hong Kong and Taiwan, while China dispatched its own fishery monitoring vessels. Reports suggested that a thousand-strong armada of Chinese fishing boats would also converge on the islands, but this ultimately failed to materialise.

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Aquino ordered a coast guard patrol vessel and a fisheries bureau survey ship out of Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea on Friday night, Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said.

“Last night, President Aquino ordered both of our ships to return to port due to increasing bad weather,” del Rosario said in a statement.

“When weather improves, a re-evaluation will be made,” he added.

China claims nearly all of the South China Sea, even waters close to the coasts of neighbouring countries. The Philippines and Vietnam have in recent years accused China of becoming increasingly aggressive in staking its claim.

As the Philippines removed their vessels, there are claims that China continues to have ships in the disputed area. Reuters adds:

Lightly armed Philippine coast guard ships had since April taken turns to escort a civilian fisheries boat guarding the mouth of Scarborough Shoal, a group of rock formations about 124 nautical miles west of the Philippines’ main island of Luzon.

At one time, China had nearly 100 civilian surveillance ships, fishing vessels and smaller utility boats in the area, raising tension in the South China Sea, threatening trade, tourism and political relations between the two sides.

On Friday, the Philippines said China still had 26 ships and fishing boats in Scarborough against the two from the Philippines – one a coast guard vessel and the other a fishing boat.

The Philippines are now waiting for China to remove their ships as well. From the Washington Post:

He says they have not decided whether to send the ships back to the area after the weather clears.

Del Rosario said Friday that Manila is waiting for Beijing to meet its commitment to remove about 20 vessels that are within the shoal’s lagoon after the only Philippine ship there left this week.

However, according to the Global Times, the Foreign Ministry has announced that Chinese activities will continue as normal:

Philippine ships have been facing off with Chinese vessels since April 10, when Chinese maritime surveillance ships blocked the Philippine Navy from arresting Chinese fishermen near the island.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said Thursday that Chinese fishing boats are currently carrying out “normal fishing” in Huangyan Island waters in the South China Sea, and that “Chinese government vessels will continue to provide management and services for its fishing ships and fishermen.” “The general situation is tending to ease. China hopes the Philippines will not take moves that will complicate and magnify the situation,” said Liu.

While both countries have agreed to show restraint in the region, Manila requested that the United States help monitor the Scarborough Shoals. The Telegraph reports:

The Philippines has requested radar, patrol aircraft and naval vessels as it seeks to bolster its position in a row with China over the Scarborough Shoal, which lies near the main Philippine island of Luzon.

Plans to help Manila reflect Washington’s strategic shift towards Asia amid a growing rivalry with Beijing, with the South China Sea at the centre of the contest, analysts said.

“Land-based radar is one of the practical ways the United States can simultaneously boost Philippine defence capabilities and signal Washington’s long-term commitment to Asia,” said Patrick Cronin, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank.

China may choose to defuse tensions with the Philippines just before a gathering of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations next month, Cronin said.

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The fight happened after officers from two coast guard ships boarded the fishing boat to arrest the nine fisherman suspected of operating in Yellow Sea waters rich in blue crabs, anchovies and croaker, coast guard spokesman Kim Dong-jin said.

The Chinese captain resisted by wielding an unidentified weapon, Kim said.

A South Korean officer stabbed in the side was taken by helicopter to a hospital in the nearby port city of Incheon but later died, Kim said. Another officer stabbed in the abdomen was to undergo surgery, and the Chinese captain had minor injuries from the fight, he said. They were also taken to the hospital.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry summoned China’s ambassador in Seoul and lodged a strong protest, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported. The Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately confirm the report.

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It has taken a month for news to emerge about the leak from a well in the Penglai 19-3 field operated by the US energy company ConocoPhillips in partnership with the China National Offshore Oil Corporation ….

The companies detected the problem on 4 June, but it only came to light on 21 June thanks to a microblog leak rather than an official release. After initially downplaying the accident, the authorities finally revealed this week that it covers an area half the size of Greater London. [or a fifth the size of Rhode Island, or three-quarters the size of Hong Kong.]

The State Oceanic Administration (SOA) said on Tuesday that the seabed leak is the first of its kind in China and the water quality in the affected area has fallen to the lowest of its four categories.

Information remains sketchy. Neither company has responded to The Guardian’s request for details. Despite vague reassurances from CNOOC on Wednesday that problem is “basically under control”, there has been no estimate of the amount of oil discharged or the potential impact on marine life and coastlines. The government also revealed that the maximum penalty for such incidents is 200,000 yuan (£19,000). Compensation is likely to be considerably higher.

Once the news did leak, the authorities rushed to assign blame to the rig’s foreign operator (as has become traditional in such cases). From The New York Times:

Officials at the [State Oceanic Administration] said ConocoPhillips China, a subsidiary of the Houston-based energy giant that operates the rigs with a Chinese state-owned company, “should take the blame” for the accident, which occurred in the mouth of the Bohai Sea, a largely enclosed body of water that touches on three provinces and the city of Tianjin.

Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, an official at the oceanic agency’s Beihai branch, said the minimum fine would be about $30,000, a figure that could rise depending on the extent of the economic and ecological damage.

The company owns a 49 percent stake in the venture, Penglai 19-3, which is the country’s largest offshore oil discovery, reportedly producing 150,000 barrels a day. It operates the rig with China’s National Offshore Oil Corporation.

The Financial Times’ beyond brics blog describes critical reactions in China to the lack of transparency surrounding the incident:

Although neither the companies nor the government have given an estimate for how much oil was released into the ocean by the two spills, reports in coastal Shandong, which is as close as 40km to the well in some places, say local fishermen have noticed unusual numbers of dead fish.

“My revenue last month was more than 50,000 yuan less compared with same period of last year,” a Shandong fisherman told the state-owned Jiefang Daily. Media outcry prompted the government to hold a press conference on Tuesday—the first official acknowledgment of the spill—where officials said a cleanup was underway and that the causes of the spill were being investigated.

Chinese state-owned media, traditionally reluctant to criticize the government, have railed against the cover up. An editorial in the Global Times said:

“We cannot help but wonder: Is the [State Oceanic Administration] a serious watchdog that exists to prevent bigger incidents from happening, or a loving parent who is over-protective of his own child? . . it is not acceptable that the [State Oceanic Administration], which had learned about the incident in early June, hold the news until a month later.”

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About 50 Chinese fishing boats were illegally fishing in western South Korean waters off Gunsan city, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) south of Seoul, on Saturday when a South Korean coast guard ship approached them to try to curb illegal fishing activities, according to the coast guard.

The boat that capsized had intentionally hit the larger coast guard ship, apparently to help its compatriots sail back to Chinese waters, coast guard official Roh Sang-gue said.

Five people from the capsized boat were rescued by Chinese fishing boats while four others were plucked from the sea by the coast guard ship, said Roh. But one of four sailors rescued by South Korea later died at a Gunsan hospital, Roh said. Coast guard boats are trying to find the missing Chinese sailor, he said.
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“Questioning is under way for the three Chinese why their ship hit the coast guard vessel,” Roh said, without giving any further details.

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South Korean maritime officials have detained 11 Chinese suspected of clubbing to death a Coast Guard officer last week as he tried to board their fishing vessel, which was suspected of illegally plying Korean territorial waters.

A North Korean patrol boat fired on another Chinese fishing boat on Saturday, wounding the vessel’s captain.

Seoul officials have long complained of illegal Chinese intrusion into the fish-rich waters off the peninsula. Despite a fisheries treaty with Beijing signed in 2001, South Korea in the last four years has captured more than 1,750 Chinese fishing vessels that allegedly violated the pact.

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China has banned commercial fishing for three months along a 1,000km (620 mile) stretch of the Yangtze River in a bid to protect threatened fish stocks.

Fishing boats will be banned from trawling in central Hubei province and Chongqing Municipality, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Bans covering two other stretches will take effect from April.

The government says it has imposed the bans to make sure that stocks of fish are not wiped out.

But a BBC correspondent in Beijing says hundreds of fishermen will have to find another way to earn a living while the bans are in place. [Full Text]

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Chinese government officials on conditions of anonymity said that increased human activity like disruptive dams, pollution and overall environmental catastrophe had led to about 40 percent of the fish population going extinct.

“There used to be more than 150 species of fish living in the Yellow River, but one-third have disappeared for good,” the National Geographic quoted an unnamed Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) official as saying to the China People’s Daily newspaper.

“Overfishing, persistent dumping, and hydropower projects along the river have degraded the underwater ecological environment,” he said.[Full Text]

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