Video of a clash between a Chinese fishing boat and Japanese coast guard has been leaked on the internet, a development that could heighten diplomatic tensions between east Asia’s pre-eminent powers.
The footage appears to be of a September incident in disputed waters of the East China Sea that sparked the worst dispute between Tokyo and Beijing in years and caused widespread disruption of political, cultural and economic exchanges.
Sino-Japanese relations have yet to return to normal despite the release by Japanese prosecutors of Chinese fishing boat captain Zhan Qixiong, who had been arrested after allegedly ramming his vessel into two coast guard patrol craft.
Officials in Tokyo said they could not confirm the authenticity of the video, but it appears to support earlier Japanese accounts of the incident in the territorial waters of the disputed Senkaku islands, which are known in China as the Diaoyu group.
The footage, posted on Google’s YouTube video website, shows Japanese coast guards ordering Mr Zhan’s boat to immediately leave the area, repeatedly broadcasting an announcement in Chinese that says the boat’s activities are “not permitted in Japanese coastal waters”.
Mr Zhan’s vessel is then shown holding its position while it retrieves its net. When it finally starts to move, it appears to intentionally collide with the rear of the much larger coast guard vessel before sailing away.
A separate segment shows Mr Zhan’s boat later sailing at high speed despite repeated instructions to stop and then apparently turning toward and hitting the side of another coast guard vessel.
"Oy! Stop! It’s coming at us!" a voice can be heard shouting in Japanese. “Vessel 2056 has been hit on the starboard rear!”
Tokyo said it was investigating the source of the leak, which came just days after the government reluctantly agreed to show much more tightly edited footage of the clash to selected members of the Japanese parliament.
Japanese officials have previously expressed concerns in private that release of the video could reignite frictions with Beijing over the unpopulated but potentially resource-rich Senkakus.
Beijing, which says the islands have been Chinese territory since “ancient times” has already dismissed suggestions that Mr Zhan’s conduct is an issue in the dispute.
“The patrol vessels of the Japan coast guard disturbed, drove away, intercepted, surrounded and held the Chinese fishing boat, which is illegal in itself and severely infringes upon China’s territorial sovereignty and the just rights and interests of the Chinese fishermen,” a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said this week.
“The so-called video cannot change the fact or cover the unlawfulness of the Japanese action,” the spokesman said.
While YouTube is blocked in China, Chinese internet users often upload video content on hot topics to domestic video sites.
On Friday morning, a clip showing one of the collisions could be found and watched on Sina and QQ News, two leading online news portals.
A web search showed that the complete set of videos found on YouTube had been available on domestic video site Ku6, but the content had already been deleted.
The only version still visible there was a short episode from a news report on the leaked video on Phoenix TV, a Chinese-owned, Hong Kong-based television channel.
On Ku6, Chinese internet users left comments backing the Chinese boat. “Clearly, they rammed [us]!” said one. Another one praised the Chinese captain saying: “Well rammed!”
