The , was a six-hour confrontation between the

Japan Coast Guard The is the coast guard of Japan. The Japan Coast Guard consists of about 13,700 personnel and is responsible for the protection of the coastline of Japan under the oversight of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. Th ...

and an armed

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...

n vessel on 22 December 2001, taking place near the Japanese island of

Amami Ōshima , also known as Amami, is the largest island in the Amami archipelago between Kyūshū and Okinawa. It is one of the Satsunan Islands. The island, 712.35 km2 in area, has a population of approximately 73,000 people. Administratively it is ...

, in the

East China Sea The East China Sea is an arm of the Western Pacific Ocean, located directly offshore from East China. It covers an area of roughly . The sea’s northern extension between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula is the Yellow Sea, separated ...

. The encounter ended in the sinking of the

n vessel, which the Japanese authorities later announced was determined to have been a spy craft. The encounter took place outside Japanese

territorial waters The term territorial waters is sometimes used informally to refer to any area of water over which a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potent ...

, but within the exclusive economic zone, an area extending from Japanese land, within which Japan can claim exclusive rights to fishing and mineral resources.

Background

An unidentified ship was spotted in Japanese waters on 21 December 2001. The

armed trawler Naval trawlers are vessels built along the lines of a fishing trawler but fitted out for naval purposes; they were widely used during the First and Second World Wars. Some—known in the Royal Navy as "Admiralty trawlers"— were purpose-built t ...

was detected by a communications station in Kikaijima, Kagoshima, which was under control of the Japanese Defense Intelligence Headquarters. In 1999, another North Korean vessel encountered by the Japanese Coast Guard was claimed by Japan to have been a spy craft, though North Korea denied it.

Battle

Early the following morning, the ship was chased by four Japan Coast Guard vessels, who ordered it to halt, and fired 25 warning shots upon the ship when those orders were ignored. A six-hour firefight ensued, in which over 1,000 machine gun rounds were fired by both sides; the North Korean crew were said to have wielded shoulder-held rocket launchers. The North Korean trawler was meanwhile hit by a number of rounds. Several explosions not directly related to Japanese attacks rocked the ship before it was sunk. According to ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'', "fifteen survivors were seen clinging to a buoy in heavy seas, but the Japanese ships were ordered to ignore them because of fears that they would use force to resist capture". Two bodies were recovered, thirteen more persons were declared missing and presumed dead several days later. The

Special Boarding Unit The is a special forces unit established by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force on March 27, 2001, in response to a spy ship incursion that had taken place on the Noto Peninsula in 1999. The unit was created to perform similar roles to thos ...

was mobilized to board the ship, but did not do so as they had to wait for official orders from the Japanese Defense Agency. The ship sank before such orders arrived.

Aftermath

In 2003 the trawler was raised by the Japanese to confirm its origin and intentions. Inspection of the hull determined it was of North Korean origin and most likely an infiltration and spy vessel. It was revealed that the vessel was camouflaged as a Chinese or Japanese fishing boat and that it could go , far faster than any commercial trawler. The ship also contained a hidden double-hatch located in the stern to be used as an exit door for speedboats. Once the inspections were completed, the hull was displayed at the

Japan Coast Guard Museum Yokohama The is a museum in Naka-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, dedicated to maritime security and the Japan Coast Guard. It opened on 10 December 2004. Exhibits The centrepiece of the museum is a North Korean spy vessel, which was sunk by the ...

in Yokohama, where the trawler became a popular tourist attraction.

References

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