More analysis of the collisions
1) Which ship has made a change in direction before the collision of Mizuki and Minjinyu 5179
2) What was Zhan Qixiong plan when he was intercepted by Yonakuni?
Update 2:
Some discussion in the comment. I would recap here.
How the collision happened, and the routing of the JCG ships and the Chinese boat are pretty clear after viewing these videos.
This is actually quite similar to the case of the Hainan flight collision between a Chinese fighter and American spy plane in April 2001.
Now the issues (and comparison) really are:
1) From Japan's perspective, the JCG is 'enforcing' its law in its water. The question is comparable to whether a police boat should block the course of a civilian when it disobeyed order. And whether the enforcement should be as aggressive in certain disputed area with a foreign boat.
2) From Chinese perspective, Japan simply has no right to enforce its law in this area.
3) From a third party's view. The issues are
a) shall enforcement be this aggressive, assuming even if this area belong to Japan (as many Japanese would say, the Russian were much more aggressive, and opened fire in South Kuriles)?
b) shall the fishing boat change course (or is it possible for it to do so technically, given it is much slowed to control the speed and direction of a boat than a car)?
c) has the captain been avoiding such collision for the whole 4-5 hours of hide and chase game, and eventually lose either concentration or patience and gave up on steering control?
d) the area seems to be within 12 nm of the island (as you can see the islands in the background in Yonakuni video). so this is not the high sea. but again, it is disputed area and enforcement should be more scrupulous.
Related links
1) ESWN: Hong Kong Media Reaction To Diaoyuatai Collision Video
2) 日艦故意讓「閩晉漁」撞上 操弄錄影片段枉費心機
3) 釣島撞船片外洩 中日矛盾惡化
4) 故意不播周旋過程
5) 專家：日艦違慣例強攔漁船
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Update 1:
1) 282 DVDs discovered in JR Station, with leaflet of "This shows the truth about DPJ. Please help yourself for free"
2) Asahi's speculation of the rationale for the leak.
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The two collision videos are finally viewable -- just as I suspected before, Kan government clearly has every reason to keep the videos to themselves, But LDP will not let go of this opportunity to discredit its political rival. I suspect the leak is from DPJ's political enemies. (The leak's youtube ID is Sengoku38. While Sankei tried to explain the connotation of 38 as gossip women in Chinese. 38 are also good fortune number is South China. So it might as well be Chinese hacker who leaked the video)
1) This is taken by crew on Yonakuni. You can see Yonakuni started from the right flank of Minjinyu 5179, cut in front of it (and obviously doing this very slowly or even 'parked' in order to intercept the fishing boat). Minjinyu's direction did not change much throughout the video and its velocity was not fast and didn't change much. When the boats collide you can see the white wave track left behind by Yonakuni, showing that it had just crossed in front of Minjinyu. From the track you can see Yonakuni's speed was much faster than Minjinyu. It makes one wonders why it slowed down (instead of sped up) while parked in front of Minjinyu.
See the white track behind Minjinyu. Yonakuni had came from behind Minjinyu and circled it from its left aft, right aft, right flank, then cross in front of it. See all that Minjinyu left no visible track, showing that its speed was much much slower than Yonakuni. The fact that Minjinyu did not crossed the white track behind also indicated that the amount of time Yonakuni has to circle Minjinyu was less than the amount of time Minjinyu has taken to go across the circle (for a perfect circle, the speed ratio will be at least pi/2=1.57 times)
1A) White track behind Minjinyu
Compare this with earlier CGI released by Japan you will understand why CGI is preferred over the real thing for Japan.
2) This one was taken by another JCG ship, Hateruma. In the first second of the video, it shows that Mizuki has just sped past Minjinyu and turned around in front of Minjinyu (see the semi-circle white wave track). Mizuki then sailed toward the Chinese fishing boat, then did a quick turn around right in front of Minjinyu, slowed down and parked and got hit by the Chinese boat which apparently could not brake nor turn (or reluctant/slow to turn).(for English subtitle version see here)
2A) Mizuki Turn around in front of Minjinyu to intercept
This is taken on Mizuki. It very clearly shows the JCG ship Mizuki sped up to intercept the Chinese Fishing Boat. In the beginning of the video, the two boats almost sailed side by side. Note also that a lot of black smoke came out from Mizuki a few seconds BEFORE the collision, similar to what you see when one pushes the pedal suddenly on a truck uphill.
This is taken a second before the collision, Note the thick black smoke from Mizuki.
The JCG boats seem determined to intercept the Chinese fishing boat. The Chinese fishing boat (Minjinyu 5179) seems determined to get out of the encirclement. The JCG boats are 3 times in length (translates into 27 times in size/volume/tonnage - Yonakuni is 89 meter long, 1300 ton displacement, vs Minjinyu 5179's 30 meter length and about 40 tons in displacement) and much faster than the fishing boat. As I had earlier speculated, it is extremely unlikely that any sane skipper will want to run into ships 27 times its size with much stronger steel body, nor that a much slower fishing boat would be fast enough to chase up the JCG ship. This looks like a replay of the 2008 Lien Ho Incident.
Relative size of A JCG ship and Minjinyu
- Hateruma: 89m, 1300 ton (speed about 60km/hr or 30-40 knots)
- Yonakuni: 89m, 1300 ton (speed about 60km/hr or 30-40 knots)
- Mizuki: 46m, 197 ton (speed about 45-45 knots)
- Minjinyu5179: 30m, 40 ton (speed about 15km/hr or 10-15knots)
In short, these videos do not help with JCG's case against skipper Zhan. It explain why Japan had to release the captain.
The Chinese MoFA spokesman Cui Tian Kai is now very adamant, "[Regarding what actually happened], The facts are very clear..."
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