In late July, North Korean authorities killed the crew of a Chinese fishing boat that illegally entered North Korean waters due to a typhoon. North Korea and China have begun investigations, with both sides worried that the incident could cause fissures in the relationship.
According to a Daily NK source in China on Monday, a Chinese fishing boat that left the port of Zhuanghe, Liaoning Province, headed toward the waters off North Pyongan Province around July 25 to catch crabs.
The boat in question was a motorboat that Chinese fishermen often use when fishing in waters off the west coast of North Korea to avoid detection by North Korean patrol boats.
However, around the time the boat arrived in North Korean waters, Typhoon In-Fa—the sixth typhoon of the year—was making its way northward along eastern China, and strong winds began blowing in the area of Liaoning Province and North and South Pyongan provinces. Even before the boat began fishing operations, it was driven by the wind to an island in Cholsan County, North Pyongan Province.
The waters near Cholsan County are home to several islands such as Ga-do and Daehwa-do, but Daily NK has yet to learn exactly which island the crew landed on.
Given that the crew of the boat landed on North Korean territory, North Korean patrol boats apparently failed to detect the boat out at sea and issue a warning for it to leave the area.
North Korean soldiers discovered the Chinese only after they had landed on the island. Not long after the discovery, they killed the three Chinese sailors who had gotten off the boat.
The source said the military unit issued the kill order before informing their superiors of the situation and receiving orders about what to do.
In late August of last year, the Ministry of Social Security issued an order calling on troops to fire without warning upon anyone or anything entering a buffer zone extending one to two kilometers from North Korea’s “border blockade line.”
While North Korean leader Kim Jong Un expressed regret after North Korean forces killed a South Korean civil servant in the waters near Soyeonpyeongdo in September of last year, the formation commander and boat captain of the West Sea Fleet’s Eighth Flotilla—the unit directly involved in the incident—received military commendations.
North Korean soldiers involved in this latest incident involving the Chinese sailors may have killed the foreigners in the hope of receiving similar commendations.
Since North Korea’s Tongchang-ri missile launch site—the Sohae Satellite Launching Station—is located in Cholsan County, security in the area is especially tight against outside intruders.
Belatedly learning of the incident, Chinese authorities have launched their own investigation, though they are avoiding public mention of it.
The incident has reportedly led Chinese authorities to delay the issuing of permits to Chinese fishing boats to operate in West Sea waters until September.
They had initially planned to issue the permits from August.
Daily NK has yet to learn which agreements were made or what kind of opinions were exchanged between North Korean and China over the matter. However, the two sides may have made some sort of agreement or pledge to prevent a recurrence of similar incidents.
Moreover, with North Korea and China growing ever closer amid conflict between China and the US and the US and North Korea, Pyongyang and Beijing are likely to remain silent over the incident to preserve bilateral friendship.
