South Korean coastguard fires machine guns at Chinese trawlers

www.scmp.com...

Beijing has issued a stern response to reports South Korean coastguard vessels have, for the first time, fired machine guns against Chinese boats illegally fishing in Korean waters. There were no casualties reported from the incident on Tuesday, which was the first of its kind since the coastguard announced last month that it would pursue a “more aggressive” firearms policy with Chinese trawlers.

Disputes over illegal fishing have dogged relations between South Korea and China for years, and there have been numerous clashes between the coastguard and Chinese crew members.
Senior coastguard official Kim Jung-shik said the order to fire came during a stand-off with some 30 Chinese fishing boats illegally operating near the South’s Yellow Sea border with North Korea.

“They tried to ram our ships although we repeatedly warned them,” Kim told the Yonhap news agency.
“I thought our officers would be in danger if I allowed any more resistance so we ended up using the crew service weapon,” he was quoted as saying.

Sounds like things might be heating up in the South China Sea. Is this new, or just a natural progression of what's been going on for years already?

China cant really say anything. illegal fishing in SK waters. China can just moan about warning shots to their citizens, but they know the citizens shouldn't have been there..they are lucky they didn't end up dead really with what the reports are saying.

Go violate any waters (and be a dick about it) and you are gonna get some pretty stern warnings in the form of bullets plucking off the side of your boat. try that stuff in Cuba and they wont bother trying to do warnings, they will shoot to kill the second you come close

Definitely not related to the other happenings with soukor's government over the last couple weeks.

a reply to: wanderingscholar

LOL! Poor little trawlers, let's see them fire on a cruise missile ship!

a reply to: wanderingscholar

S. Korea has consistently warned China about their illegal fishing in S. Korean waters, which China has ignored. When Chinese fishing boats rammed and sank a S. Korean coastguard vessel they explicitly told China any further incidents would be met with force.