Crew of Vietnamese fishing boat injured in an attack in the South China Sea, state media say

HANOI (AP) — A Vietnamese fishing boat was attacked in the South China Sea near the Paracel Islands, claimed by both China and Vietnam, and 10 crew members were injured, Vietnamese state media said Monday.

The Vietnamese boat radioed Sunday to report the attack, saying three fishermen suffered broken limbs and seven others received other injuries, the Tien Phong newspaper quoted a local official at Binh Chau commune in Quang Ngai province as saying.

It was not clear what country’s boat attacked the Vietnamese vessel, and commune officials told The Associated Press they had nothing to add to the newspaper report.

Vietnam’s border guard is investigating the case but has not yet made any information available.

The Paracel Islands are about 400 kilometers (250 miles) off Vietnam’s eastern coast and about the same distance southeast from the Chinese province of Hainan.

Both countries claim them, as does the self-governing island of Taiwan.

The newspaper report said the attack on the boat occurred in Vietnamese waters but did not specify exactly where it was.

China claims almost all of the strategically vital South China Sea as its own territory, which has caused disputes with the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

Beijing has been increasingly assertive in pursuing its claims, which has brought China into direct confrontations with the Philippines and Vietnam.

The United States has no claims in the South China Sea itself, but has deployed Navy and Air Force assets to patrol the waterway, through which around $5 trillion in global trade transits each year.

China threatened “serious consequences” last year after the U.S. Navy sailed a destroyer around the Paracel Islands in a “freedom of navigation operation” challenging what it called “excessive maritime claims.”

The Paracel Islands have been under de facto Chinese control since 1974, when Beijing seized them from Vietnam in a brief naval conflict.

Last year, satellite photos showed China appeared to be building an airstrip on Triton Island in the Paracel group. As it was laid out at the time, it appeared it would be big enough to accommodate turboprop aircraft and drones but not fighter jets or bombers.

China has also had a small harbor and buildings on the island for years, along with a helipad and radar arrays.

China has refused to provide details of its island construction work other than to say it is aimed at promoting global navigation safety.

It has rejected accusations that it is militarizing the waterway, a key global and security route which is also believed to be sitting atop vast undersea deposits of gas and oil. ___

Rising reported from Bangkok.

Hau Dinh And David Rising, The Associated Press