Over recent days, reporters from 10 international media agencies have visited Da Nang to learn about the fishing boat DNa 90152 which was capsized by a Chinese ship on 26 May.  They wanted to gather further information about the deliberate attack by the Chinese.  According to objective remarks by the visiting reporters, international opinion has strongly condemned China’s inhumane action which was aimed at killing innocent Vietnamese fishermen. 

Among the visitors was 65-year-old reporter James Borton from the USA’s Washington Times.  Despite his age, he made the long trip to Viet Nam to get accurate information about the incident.  In a recent interview with reporter Borton, the captain of the damaged fishing boat, Mr Dang Van Nhan, said that the Chinese ship was up to 7 times larger than his wooden fishing boat, and he insisted that the attacking ship was actually a military vessel disguised as a fishing boat.  The captain expressed his strong determination to continue fishing in the Hoang Sa waters, regardless of the perverse and aggressive actions by the Chinese.  He also affirmed that the Hoang Sa archipelago is the flesh and blood of Viet Nam. 

Reporter Borton (left) interviewing the owner of the damaged boat, Mrs Huynh Thi Nhu Hoa

In reply, the US reporter promised that he would release information about the aggression, as well as the current difficulties facing Vietnamese fishermen in the East Sea, to readers in Washington and the USA as a whole.  This would help to appeal for international donations for Vietnamese fishermen.

China has been slandering and blaming Viet Nam for the incident on 26 May.  According to a Chinese news agency, the Vietnamese fishing boat “harassed” the Chinese ship, and it had overturned after it “jostled” the Chinese ship.  In response to the Chinese version of the incident, reporter Borton stressed that he never believed the wrongful allegations by the Chinese side because the Chinese ship was many times the size of the capsized boat, and Vietnamese people are totally peace-loving.  Frankly speaking, he noted that people in Viet Nam and other countries, but excluding China, know that the Chinese often “speak tongue in cheek”!  The US reporter said that he is a professor of Maritime Affairs at a university in the USA, but he is about to retire.  Therefore, he will spend more time making other trips to Viet Nam to gather further information about the capsized Vietnamese boat. 

The US reporter’s enthusiastic and friendly nature makes Vietnamese people believe that people from the USA, and from other foreign countries across the world, will understand more about the real situation in the East Sea as well as raise their voices in support of Viet Nam.