Is China downplaying ‘restrained’ clash with Vietnamese fishermen near Paracel Islands?

Vietnam says Chinese personnel boarded a local fishing boat on Sunday and beat the crew with iron bars, seriously injuring four of them

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Fishermen pulling their net on Vietnam’s offshore Ly Son island, the country’s closest island to the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:30pm, 3 Oct 2024Updated: 9:33pm, 3 Oct 2024

Beijing’s playing down of a recent confrontation in the South China Sea in which Vietnam claimed its fishermen were violently beaten by personnel from Chinese ships reflects a consistent strategy to convince the Chinese people of the superpower’s reasonable behaviour in the disputed waterway.

Observers also say the latest incident could be the “tip of the iceberg”, and Hanoi could pivot from its low-key diplomatic approach to its maritime dispute with Beijing if similar incidents were to recur.

Their comments follow a reported attack on a Vietnamese fishing boat on Sunday, with Hanoi protesting to Beijing days after the incident. In response, Beijing’s foreign ministry said “no injuries were found” and that on-site operations to handle a case of illegal fishing were “professional and restrained”.

Abdul Rahman Yaacob, a research fellow with the Australia-based Lowy Institute’s Southeast Asia programme, said although video evidence indicated otherwise, China has consistently maintained that its coastguard or military personnel behaved properly to protect its sovereignty.

“This approach is primarily taken to target the domestic audience – to convince them that Chinese forces are acting in a reasonable manner,” Rahman said.

Vietnam’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Chinese law enforcers beat its fishermen and took away their equipment when their boat was operating near Hoang Sa, Vietnam’s name for the Paracel Islands.