This video grab taken on June 1 from Vietnam Coast Guard ship 2016 shows the Chinese Coast Guard ship 46001 (L) chasing a Vietnamese vessel near the Chinese oil rig in disputed waters in the South China Sea.

Agencies/Hanoi/Manila


Vietnam state television has broadcast video showing a Chinese ship colliding with a small Vietnamese fishing boat which capsizes in its path not far from where China has parked an oil rig in disputed waters.
Vietnam and China have already traded accusations over who was to blame for the May 26 incident, as tensions fester between the two countries over the giant drilling platform in the South China Sea.
The video, shot from a nearby Vietnamese craft, shows a much larger Chinese vessel steaming after two Vietnamese fishing boats.
It bisects the two boats, then the Vietnamese ship closest to the camera suddenly tips on its side into the path of the larger vessel and overturns.
At the moment of impact, one man on the boat from where the footage was filmed yells in Vietnamese: “Oh! The boat’s sinking.”
Vietnamese fishing boats operating nearby rescued the 10 fishermen from the sunken vessel, the government and the coastguard have previously said.
“The latest images recorded by Vietnamese fishermen at the time when fishing ship DNa-90152 was sunk by a Chinese ship serve as irrefutable evidence of the inhumane actions of China against Vietnamese fishermen,” the VTV report said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said it was the Vietnamese ships that were being aggressive.
“In these seas. China’s ships were in a defensive mode ... who was it who took the initiative for the clash? Who was it who created tension on the scene? This is very clear,” Hong said.
Last week, Hanoi said some 40 Chinese fishing boats had surrounded the Vietnamese craft before one of them rammed it and it sank. China’s official Xinhua news agency, citing a government source, had said the vessel capsized after “harassing and colliding with” a Chinese fishing boat.
Scores of Vietnamese and Chinese ships, including coastguard vessels, have continued to square off around the rig despite a series of collisions after the platform was towed to the area in early May. Until the May 26 incident, no ship had sunk.
The Haiyang Shiyou 981 rig is drilling between the Paracel islands occupied by China and the Vietnamese coast.
Admiral Ngo Ngoc Thu, vice commander of the Vietnam Coastguard, said on Thursday China had “up to 140 ships” around the rig, including “six military vessels and many military planes”.
“Since China put the rig in Vietnam’s water, they have damaged 24 Vietnamese ships,” he told reporters.
Vietnam said yesterday the rig had moved position but was still in its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone and on its continental shelf. China says it is operating within its waters.
The rig’s deployment also set off anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam last month. At least four workers were killed.
China claims about 90% of the South China Sea, displaying its reach on official maps with a so-called nine-dash line that stretches deep into the maritime heart of Southeast Asia. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have claims to parts of the potentially energy-rich waters.
Vietnam’s prime minister pledged yesterday to step up economic reforms and prevent a repeat of riots targeting foreign-owned factories, seeking to reassure nervous investors.
Nguyen Tan Dung said the mid-May unrest, in which Beijing says four Chinese workers were killed, was “unprecedented and unexpected”.
“I can confirm that there will not be any more riots,” he said at a business forum in Hanoi, adding that the government would “ensure safety and security for foreign business and foreigners working, studying or living in Vietnam.”
“Place your confidence and trust in Vietnam,” he urged investors.
Taiwanese and Korean businesses were hit hardest by the unrest, which saw factories vandalised and set ablaze in parts of south and central Vietnam.
Dung said some 90% of affected businesses were now back to normal, and promised further assistance for those that were not.
Authorities “have taken measures to punish perpetrators and prevent this reoccurring”, Dung said.
He pledged to accelerate Vietnam’s domestic economic reforms with a bigger role for private firms, strengthened institutions and increased financial restructuring, and to pursue integration with the world economy.
“The whole economy needs to be restructured,” he said, adding that many major state-owned enterprises would be privatised this year.
The country is negotiating six different trade deals from the Trans-Pacific Partnership to bilateral deals with the European Union and South Korea, he said.
Dung highlighted the government’s recent economic track record, bringing sky-high inflation under control and steadily boosting GDP growth.
GDP growth is expected to be around 5.8% for 2014, followed by 6.0% in 2015 and 6.5% a year for the following four years, Dung said.
Dung “was clearly trying to encourage businesses”, said one of the forum participants, Tony Foster, of business law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
But “the one thing this country really had going for it was stability and security and now that’s gone out the window”, he added.
Edmund Malesky, an expert on Vietnam’s investment-fuelled development at Duke University, said that Dung’s speech—with its emphasis on new FTAs and integration into the global economy—hinted at a “restructuring of Vietnam’s foreign policy”.
Policymakers see the riots “as an opportunity to rethink foreign relations,” he said, adding they “are looking beyond just trade relations with China”.