Suspicion Over Ship Accident
China Ought to Explain About Belated Reporting
A diplomatic row is looming large over China’s belated report of a South Korean cargo ship sinking off the neighboring country’s east coast. Sixteen sailors remain missing after their South Korean-registered freighter, Golden Rose, sank after colliding with the Chinese vessel Jinsheng in dense fog on the sea near Yantai, Shandong Province, around 4 a.m. Saturday. The accident sparked speculation that the 4,800-ton Chinese ship left the scene without making any effort to rescue the victims.
No one can imagine how the Chinese did nothing to come to the rescue of crewmembers of the sinking ship. Their inaction constitutes an apparent violation of international laws and conventions. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the harming vessel is required to try to rescue victims when a collision takes place. The operators of the Chinese ship must clearly explain why their sailors continued to their destination _ Dalian in Liaoning Province.
We cannot understand why the crew of the Chinese boat reported the case to China’s maritime authorities seven hours after the collision. The Chinese government is also under criticism for making a delayed report to the South Korean Embassy in Beijing. Chinese officials gave official notification of the accident to the embassy at 0:05 a.m. Sunday nearly 21 hours after the collision and about 14 hours after it first learned of the incident, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Seoul.
In such a maritime accident, no one can waste even a second because victims’ lives depend on urgent rescue action. Quick reporting might have minimized the scale of the tragedy, even though the Chinese crew was unable to conduct rescue work. The sailors only reported the accident after they arrived at Dalian. Against this backdrop, the delayed response cannot but raise suspicions that the Chinese ship and the Beijing government may be trying to cover up the cause of the collision.
In addition, the South Korean government was also slammed for slow action. The Busan-based operator of the ill-fated vessel reported the case to the Korea Coast Guard at 1:58 p.m. Saturday. However, the guard reported it to the foreign ministry, the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, and 27 other related government agencies through a fax message about six hours later. The foreign ministry only confirmed the message at 11:30 p.m., some three hours after receiving the fax transmission.
South Korean officials should make efforts to get to the bottom of the accident and shed light on why the Chinese side delayed the reporting. They will also have to investigate why the Korean side failed to respond quickly to the emergency situation. We hope that Seoul and Beijing will strengthen cooperation to prevent such incidents in the future, although the case may develop into a diplomatic dispute between the two countries.
