Senkaku Ramming Video Leaked

The video of a Chinese fishing vessel ramming a Japanese coast guard ship at sea off the disputed Senkaku Islands taken by the coast guard has been leaked, despite the Japanese government’s efforts to suppress it to protect relations with China.

The videos can be inspected below.

The major crash occurs 1 minute into this video:

The fishing vessel can be seen swerving into the side of the coast guard vessel alongside – the direction of its wake seems to clearly indicate it was the fishing vessel changing course and not the coast guard ship.

The Chinese vessel rammed Japanese ships not once but twice it seems:

Player 1

In the further event that YouTube falls victim to pressure, the main collision again:

Player 2

Images and the aftermath:

Of course, with the videos being leaked there is no guarantee of their authenticity – however it is hard to see how they could have been faked (the Chinese ship can be clearly identified) or edited to give a misleading impression.

[Update: the coast guard has confirmed their authenticity and the government is vowing to hunt down the person responsible for the leak]

The rest of the videos are less eventful (apparently the entire incident spanned 3 hours, all of which was filmed):

[Update: The various videos have been removed, though not before they were covered fully by all major Japanese news networks]

Claims that a coast guard member was attacked in the water by the Chinese seem not to be supported by the video – whether this was a tactical fabrication as some have suggested, or was merely left off the released video, is not clear.

Claims that the Chinese captain was drunk are also neither confirmed nor discredited by the evidence shown in the videos.

Incidentally, China claims the Japanese devils viciously rammed their innocent little fishing boat:

However, the Japanese version (shown below in a media CG recreation before the videos were leaked) seems to match the video perfectly:

With the videos out, both China and the Japanese government have some major explaining to do – China might be expected to shrug off the incident as a patriotic act by one of its citizens against Japanese aggressors invading its waters, but the hitherto extraordinarily pro-Chinese Japanese government may now be in danger of falling, and the Japanese public is likely to be firmly Sinosceptic for the foreseeable future.