Best Defense

Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Argentina sinks Chinese fishing boat

This is interesting: The Argentine coast guard tried to stop a Chinese fishing boat that it believed was operating illegally in an area rich with squid.

Cerca_de_Puerto_Madryn
Cerca_de_Puerto_Madryn

 

 

This is interesting: The Argentine coast guard tried to stop a Chinese fishing boat that it believed was operating illegally in an area rich with squid. The Argentines say that the Chinese boat refused to heed an order to stop and instead tried turned off its running lights and aimed to crash into their craft. The Argentines report that fired warning shots and then, after several hours of giving chase as the boat headed to seashot into the ship, apparently with great success.

The Argentines rescued four members of the fishing crew, while 28 others were picked up by other boats in the Chinese fleet.

I keep on returning to the thought that the Chinese ultimately are their own worst enemy in international relations, overstepping and treating others with contempt. I wonder how many Argentine warnings were ignored before this happened. On the other hand, Mario Vargas Llosa once described the ego as “the little Argentine that lives inside all of us.”

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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