Recently China has detained several Vietnamese fishing boats and still no question of returning them. The government of Vietnam has asked China to stop detaining its fishermen and to return fishing boats it seized in the South China Sea in recent months. According to the report published in media Vietnam is concerned about China’s repeated seizures of Vietnamese fishing boats and fishermen while they are operating normally in Vietnamese sovereign waters.
Vietnamese government spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga was quoted saying that China and Vietnam both claim the Paracels and the neighboring Spratly Islands, and the two countries have conflicting maritime territorial claims. Nga also said that Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday handed a diplomatic note to the Chinese Embassy, demanding China return boats, equipment and property belonging to the Vietnamese fishermen and take measures to prevent any similar recurrence.
It is informed that the three Vietnamese fishing boats have been seized by the Chinese naval patrols near the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea on December 7 and 8 and held their 43 crew members for three days. They released the fishermen in one of the boats, but kept the other two. China seized two other Vietnamese fishing boats in June. In August, China detained several trawlers after they took shelter from an approaching storm in the Paracels.
