A fishing boat outrunning the coast guard? Do they use rowboats down there?
The boats might be a stretch but possible. Im more impressed that they could outrun rounds from “machineguns and cannon fire.”
I interpret this as the Argentinian vessel firing shots across the bow coupled with international signals to “Heave To”, which were ignored, so the Argentinian vessel was probably trying for eight hours to cut in front of it and make the vessel stop, which they likely stubbornly refused to do.
I doubt the Argentinians had the guts to actually fire on the Chinese vessel and hit it.