Posted on 05/17/2012 5:44:15 AM PDT by Pinkbell
North Korean officials have demanded payment before they will release Chinese fishing boats with a total of 29 men on board, Chinese media reported on Thursday, in a rare public spat between the neighbors and longtime allies.
The Chinese owners of the boats said they were seized by a North Korean gunboat on May 8 in the Yellow Sea, between China and North Korea, the Beijing News reported.
The owners said the vessels were fishing in Chinese waters. North Korea has not made any public comment on the case.
The North Koreans holding the boats and sailors demanded payment of 1.2 million yuan ($189,800) for releasing them, then cut their price to 900,000 yuan and set a deadline of Thursday, Zhang Dechang, owner of one of the captured boats told the newspaper, which called the demand a "ransom".
The 29 sailors who were on board the boats are now in North Korea, said one captured seaman in a call with an owner, the newspaper added.
The Chinese government would not publicly confirm any details about the reported incident.
"China is maintaining close contact with North Korea through the relevant channels, and we hope this problem will be appropriately solved as soon as possible," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a daily briefing.
"We have also stated to North Korea that it should ensure the legitimate rights of Chinese ship personnel."
China is the key economic and diplomatic backer of North Korea, seeing it as a buffer against U.S. influence in the region. Beijing is a major supplier of food aid and oil to the North, which remains isolated by sanctions over its nuclear ambitions and rocket launches.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Maybe or China trying to make NK look like China doesn’t control them.
This might be the best thing to ever happen to those fishermen.
China doesn’t actually control North Korea. It’s a weird American bad habit to try to simplify the world down to a single puppet master.
The Soviet Union, as we have later learned, had far less control of other communist countries during the Cold War than we believed at the time.
how is this different than the Somali piracy?
And also it’s important to recognize China doesn’t control China, either.
As many recent events have shown, nobody is really in charge in China and a lot of government agencies appear to be operating autonomously.
Talk about whackos!!
North Korea is a basketcase, no doubt about that.
Kim Jong Un is only 29 years old and by all accounts was a dunce at school. Too young and stupid to know how to run a country, even a totalitarian one...
A twenty five percent discount, huh? They must be "lousy" fishermen.
‘I’ve been kidnapped by KMart.”
North Korea defies description.
Socialism is madness and wickedness in state form; North Korea is all that in its purest.
If Jim Jones ran a country, it would be exactly like North Korea.
My face pisses me off. I think I’ll cut off my nose!
Did Ronrey Jr. wreck the old Mercedes?
“My face pisses me off. I think I’ll cut off my nose!”
You so olnely!
Perzackly. Gotta wonder if there’s any communication between Un’s synapses at all...
Given what he’s done since “taking office”, I may have to review my definition of “Un-believable”...
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