Recent Posts

Archives

 

Russian Federation Fires on, Sinks Chinese Ship

by tdaxp ~ February 21st, 2009

Without comment:

BEIJING, Feb. 21 (UPI) — Russia’s attitude and response to the sinking of a Chinese cargo ship in Russian waters is unacceptable, Beijing’s foreign ministry says.

Zhang Xiyun, director general of the foreign ministry’s Department of European-Central Asian Affairs, Friday lodged formal protests with Russian Minister Counselor to China Morgulov Igor regarding the Feb. 14 incident involving the ship New Star, Xinhua, the state-run Chinese news agency reported.

A Russian warship fired 500 rounds at the New Star, sinking it during stormy weather in Russian waters near the eastern port city

of Vladivostok, The New York Times reported.

via China protests Russia’s ship actions – UPI.com.

See also: China Demands Russia Explain Ship Sinking.

«
»

3 Responses to Russian Federation Fires on, Sinks Chinese Ship

  1. historyguy99
    February 21st, 2009 at 6:27 pm

    Seems like they had not intention of just stopping them. 500 rounds from two different ships, even if only 57 mm either show a premeditated attempt to sink the vessel, or the Russians just revealed to the world that they can’t shoot straight. ;-)

  2. fabius.maximus.cunctator
    February 21st, 2009 at 11:46 pm

    Surprised, anyone ? I hope not. That s just the same mixture of pure inefficiency and brutality observers of the RU polictical scene are used to. The further Chinese reaction will be interesting.

  3. tdaxp
    February 23rd, 2009 at 6:27 am

    I have a post of Chinese and Russian reactions to the shooting. [1]

    Apparently there’s a money angle to this: [2]

    The company said the New Star had arrived in Nakhodka at the end of January to deliver a consignment of rice, but that the purchaser had refused to accept it saying it was poor quality, and demanded compensation.

    which would make sense, if the Russian government and mafia are closely integrated enough to order the sinking of a ship that does not pay a large & suddenly imposed ‘fine.’

    The timing, wrt Clinton’s trip [3], is certainly interesting.

    [1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2009/02/22/chinese-and-russian-reactions-to-russias-sinking-of-the-chinese-ship-new-star.html
    [2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7904484.stm
    [3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/jamesreynolds/2009/02/hillary_clintons_visit_to_beij.html

Leave a Reply