A new report finds significant deposits of rare earth elements in 14 states, with the largest known deposits at Mountain Pass, California; Bokan Mountain, Alaska; and the Bear Lodge Mountains, Wyoming. "Placer" deposits are sandy sediments that sometimes contain rare earths. Phosphorite deposits, which mostly occur in the southeastern US, sometimes contain the rare earth elements yttrium and lanthanum (Image: USGS)
Yonakuni has taken a long circle to come in front of Minjinyu, starting from about 8 O'clock direction (of Minjinyu 5179) to reach 2 O'clock in the begining of the video, and was at around 11:30 O'clock when its end collided with Minjinyu 5179
At around 8'30", you can see another JCG ship, probably Hateruma (Let call it H), behind Yonakuni and to the right of Minjinyu 5179. Since we did not see it before earlier while Yonakuni was circling in front of Minjinyu 5179, we can conclude that H was probably either at 7-8 O'clock direction for Minjinyu 5179, or some distance from the 3 O'clock direction
The track thickened a lot right behind Yonakuni at the moment of the collision, most likely indicating it has slowed down and parked (confirmed by the relative motion of Yonakuni with the sea wave track in the video)
The situation is illustrated in this diagram below (click to enlarge)
What would you do if you wre captain Zhan at this moment?
Your boat is much slower than Yonakuni (10 knots vs 30-40 knots), so it is useless to go anywhere in front of it. 12-9 O'clock directions are ruled out. It takes some time for Yonakuni to make a u-turn so your best chance is go behind it.
You cannot go backward. You probably arrived at this position and were planning to move forward. But you had to stop your engine because Yonakuni is cutting in front of you. Going backward will bring you closer to Huangwei Yu and bring you more trouble. You want to be as far away from Huangwei Yu as you can now.
You should also see JCG H coming from behind and trying to round you up on the other side, so you should try to get as far away from Huangwei Yu as possible. You hope if you can get out of the 24 nm radius you would be free and avoid being caught and result in financial losses
You options are anywhere from 3-12 O'Oclock. 12 O'clock (proceeding directly ahead) offer you the best chance to escape, because JCG H is behind you and may intercept you from behind on your right hand side Another reason to avoid your right hand side is that H probably is already at your 3 O'clock now.
You see Yonakuni is moving, there are some 100-200m between you and Yonakuni, so by the time you reached its current position (Y0), it should have moved to Y1 already.
So you took the short path, charging directly ahead to break the trap. M0 to M1.
Yonakuni knew that and saw that. It braked/backpedaled and stayed at Y2 instead. You tried to avoid it but you still got to its tail.
Should you have taken 1 O'clock or 2 O'clock instead to be safe (even if H is at 3 O'clcok coming to you)? You probably should, and you probably had done all those earlier that morning. This is one of the many interceptions since early morning and the ordeal would take at least another 2-6 hours that day. Maybe they have videos for you trying hard to avoid collision as well. They are not going to show the public if all the other videos. If not for that over-zealous and over-confident sengoku38 san, no one in the public will be able to even see this video.
Maybe you should have made your own recording. But you cannot afford such gadgets, and were not prepared to bring a video-camera to this trip, After all, you are a poor fisherman trying to make some bugs. You are not coming here for eco-tour.
Update (Nov 17): upon a few more viewing, I have come to the conclusion that Minjinyu also made a turn of about 20-30 degree and at some point was not exactly facing left. I have updated my graph accordingly. Note also that I am not trying to prove that Minjinyu bears no responsibility at the collision. I believe both sides need to share the responsibility, since Mizuki also made a significant turn of some 240-270 degrees, and made its direction very unpredictable -- might have caused the seemingly erratic turn of Minjinyu. (But we really do not have solid evidence to say either way)
But before you go on I want you to first judge this picture, that if the boat has turned
Then you can find out the answer in this picture below (where the picture above is cropped from), taken from the end credit of the movie Suspect X (a great movie btw). I do not claim the situations are the same, but this just shows us how a partial picture is far from being a conclusive evidence. That is why I hope Japan would release all the 10 hours of videos it has taken.
===
In my previous post an anomymous commentator suggested that Minjinyu 5179 made a change of direction and hence ram into Mizuki. What he saw was the video taken from on board Mizuki, all it shows is the relative velocity. Fortunately, we are able to see another video taken by Hateruma during the exact same moment from a different angle. Here it is.
This is a screenshot taken by Japanprobe, from the video taken by Hateruma, observing the collision between Mizuki and 5178. You can see the trace behind Mizuki, when it just completed a 300 degree turn right in front of 5179. It is quite clear that it is Mizuki which had made a large angle turn just before the collision, towards the area blocking the path of 5179
A path with time scale based on the video, and the speed indicated by the intervals between the 10 second gaps is shown approximately here. Looking at the time scale you can also see that Mizuki has more or less parked (stationary speed) for the 30 seconds before the collision, while Minjinyu had actually slowed down a bit. You can view the video again to verify my chart.
1A) Mizuki speeding towards 5179 (0:47)
1B) Mizuki turned 90 degrees (1:10). Note that Minjinyu 5179 has already made its turn of 20-30 degree by then. So Minjinyu's turn was made most likely while Mizuki formed a T in front of it. Perhaps it was expecting Mizuki to continue sailing towards its right, so that turning left would avoid the much faster Mizuki.
1C) Mizuki completed the turn (1:08)
Since Mizuki is almost stationary while making the turn, we can estimate the speed of Minjinyu during the moments to be around its own length during 10 seconds. which is approximately 40m/10s or 4m/s=15km/hr.
If you compare the location of Mizuki between 0:26 and 0:29, in less than 3 seconds it traveled the length of its own of 46 meters (type びざん型巡視船 (2代))(marked by the white wave). So its speed is about 50m/3s = 60km/hr, 4 times the speed of fishing boat 5170. So even adjusting for it slower speed right after the turn, it must be able to avoid the crash it wanted to.
If this is still not conclusive, in the Mizuki video we can see two other JCG staff were taking videos, they should release those videos as well as additional data points.
---
Now back to the video taken from Mizuki.
A second JCG ship can be seen on the right of 5170, trying to encircle it from left behind
In 15 seconds, the 2nd JCG ship has moved to the left side of 5179, leaving a long white trace behind it, this shows the significant difference in relative speed of JCG boats and Minjinyu 5179
The encircling tactic is not uncommon from JCG. This is an aerial photo from another act by JCG, probably taken in 1998 in the same area. This may be the plan of the JCG ships.
See also a different view in this NBR thread, there are some problem with the poster's observation though, e.g. he claimed there were 2 JCG ships, in fact there were at least 3, the Yonakuni, the Mizuki, and the Kateruma.
Not the Noto Peninsular in central north area of the island (north of Ishikawa), Shikoku/Seto Inland Sea area, Wakayam Peninsular are all well recognizable in the chart.
Update 2:
Some discussion in the comment. I would recap here.
How the collision happened, and the routing of the JCG ships and the Chinese boat are pretty clear after viewing these videos.
This is actually quite similar to the case of the Hainan flight collision between a Chinese fighter and American spy plane in April 2001.
Now the issues (and comparison) really are:
1) From Japan's perspective, the JCG is 'enforcing' its law in its water. The question is comparable to whether a police boat should block the course of a civilian when it disobeyed order. And whether the enforcement should be as aggressive in certain disputed area with a foreign boat.
2) From Chinese perspective, Japan simply has no right to enforce its law in this area.
3) From a third party's view. The issues are
a) shall enforcement be this aggressive, assuming even if this area belong to Japan (as many Japanese would say, the Russian were much more aggressive, and opened fire in South Kuriles)?
b) shall the fishing boat change course (or is it possible for it to do so technically, given it is much slowed to control the speed and direction of a boat than a car)?
c) has the captain been avoiding such collision for the whole 4-5 hours of hide and chase game, and eventually lose either concentration or patience and gave up on steering control?
d) the area seems to be within 12 nm of the island (as you can see the islands in the background in Yonakuni video). so this is not the high sea. but again, it is disputed area and enforcement should be more scrupulous.
The two collision videos are finally viewable -- just as I suspected before, Kan government clearly has every reason to keep the videos to themselves, But LDP will not let go of this opportunity to discredit its political rival. I suspect the leak is from DPJ's political enemies. (The leak's youtube ID is Sengoku38. While Sankei tried to explain the connotation of 38 as gossip women in Chinese. 38 are also good fortune number is South China. So it might as well be Chinese hacker who leaked the video)
1) This is taken by crew on Yonakuni. You can see Yonakuni started from the right flank of Minjinyu 5179, cut in front of it (and obviously doing this very slowly or even 'parked' in order to intercept the fishing boat). Minjinyu's direction did not change much throughout the video and its velocity was not fast and didn't change much. When the boats collide you can see the white wave track left behind by Yonakuni, showing that it had just crossed in front of Minjinyu. From the track you can see Yonakuni's speed was much faster than Minjinyu. It makes one wonders why it slowed down (instead of sped up) while parked in front of Minjinyu.
See the white track behind Minjinyu. Yonakuni had came from behind Minjinyu and circled it from its left aft, right aft, right flank, then cross in front of it. See all that Minjinyu left no visible track, showing that its speed was much much slower than Yonakuni. The fact that Minjinyu did not crossed the white track behind also indicated that the amount of time Yonakuni has to circle Minjinyu was less than the amount of time Minjinyu has taken to go across the circle (for a perfect circle, the speed ratio will be at least pi/2=1.57 times)
1A) White track behind Minjinyu
1B)White track to the right of Minjinyu
1C) Right before collision, white track behind Yonakuni. Yonakuni has just made an almost 90 degree turn in front of Minjinyu.
1D) After collision, no more white track as Minjinyu broke out of the "white circle".
Compare this with earlier CGIreleased by Japan you will understand why CGI is preferred over the real thing for Japan.
2) This one was taken by another JCG ship, Hateruma. In the first second of the video, it shows that Mizuki has just sped past Minjinyu and turned around in front of Minjinyu (see the semi-circle white wave track). Mizuki then sailed toward the Chinese fishing boat, then did a quick turn around right in front of Minjinyu, slowed down and parked and got hit by the Chinese boat which apparently could not brake nor turn (or reluctant/slow to turn).(for English subtitle version see here)
2A) Mizuki Turn around in front of Minjinyu to intercept
2B) Mizuki speed toward Minjinyu after first turn
2C) Mizuki, reach in front of Minjinyu, turned again to block Minjinyu from its front, the next video starts here, filming the left side of Minjinyu. You can see that Minjinyu did not change direction, while Mizuki turned into its way. It is not clear whether Minjinyu would have enough time to change course, or if it did, Mizuki would not move again to block it.
This is taken on Mizuki. It very clearly shows the JCG ship Mizuki sped up to intercept the Chinese Fishing Boat. In the beginning of the video, the two boats almost sailed side by side. Note also that a lot of black smoke came out from Mizuki a few seconds BEFORE the collision, similar to what you see when one pushes the pedal suddenly on a truck uphill.
This is taken a second before the collision, Note the thick black smoke from Mizuki.
The JCG boats seem determined to intercept the Chinese fishing boat. The Chinese fishing boat (Minjinyu 5179) seems determined to get out of the encirclement. The JCG boats are 3 times in length (translates into 27 times in size/volume/tonnage - Yonakuni is 89 meter long, 1300 ton displacement, vs Minjinyu 5179's 30 meter length and about 40 tons in displacement) and much faster than the fishing boat. As I had earlier speculated, it is extremely unlikely that any sane skipper will want to run into ships 27 times its size with much stronger steel body, nor that a much slower fishing boat would be fast enough to chase up the JCG ship. This looks like a replay of the 2008 Lien Ho Incident.
Relative size of A JCG ship and Minjinyu
Hateruma: 89m, 1300 ton (speed about 60km/hr or 30-40 knots)
Yonakuni: 89m, 1300 ton (speed about 60km/hr or 30-40 knots)
Mizuki: 46m, 197 ton (speed about 45-45 knots)
Minjinyu5179: 30m, 40 ton (speed about 15km/hr or 10-15knots)
In short, these videos do not help with JCG's case against skipper Zhan. It explain why Japan had to release the captain.
The Chinese MoFA spokesman Cui Tian Kai is now very adamant, "[Regarding what actually happened], The facts are very clear..."
AP: So, do I understand you correctly that, if economic issues are
resolved during your second term, during that term, you might move on
to political questions?
[00:32:17]
President Ma: As I said, it depends on how fast we move, whether these
issues are satisfactorily resolved, and of course all the policies regarding
the mainland are very sensitive, and we certainly will also make decisions
on generally whether the decision receives popular support. So usually
when we lay out our general policy, we will say that: first of all, it has to
be something needed by the country; secondly, it has to be supported by
the people; and thirdly, that it will be supervised by the national
parliament to make sure that this is a policy basically meeting the needs
of the people.
In between the poles of union and separation, Ma said his government is prepared to discuss political agreements, including security issues, as soon as the priority economic issues are dealt with. He suggested that those political talks could start as early as a second four-year term if he wins re-election in 2012.
"We are not intentionally delaying the talks on political issues. Certainly the economic ones are more important to people here. People also support the idea (of) economy first, politics later," said Ma. Asked if he would move to political talks in a second term once economic issues are dealt with, Ma said "it depends on how fast we move." Political issues, he said, "will come after all the major economic issues are resolved."
[45:20]
AP: Now, since you touched on the natural resources, the U.S. has voiced
some concerns that, you know, there’s the Diaoyutai and then there’s the
larger issue of the free passage of shipping through the South and East
China seas and access to natural gas deposits or whatever might be down
there on the ocean floor. And the U.S. has voiced concerns that the
mainland is really trying to cut off access to foreign trade in that area,
which would have, obviously, a poor effect on Taiwan, which really owes
its existence to free access to those shipping lanes. So, do you share the
concerns of the United States?
[45:53]
President Ma: Certainly. I think most of the waters in the South China
Sea should be open waters, the so-called high seas according to the Law
of the Sea.And they’re open to international traffic for sure. Actually, as I
said, countries started to occupy and garrison those islands a long time
ago. So this is not a very new issue. We sent our troops, our Marine Corps,
to station on those islands as early as 1956. Just 10 years ago, we changed
that with Coast Guard instead of the Marines. I served in our Navy more
than 30 years ago, and my unit had the responsibility to supply all these
islands. So I understand this issue well. AP: So is China trying to interfere with the open water policy?
[46:52]
President Ma: No. So far no. And I don’t think mainland China would do
that. You know, when they are becoming a power in the region, they also
become more careful about those issues. Certainly, it wants to maintain
its sphere of influence but I don’t believe that will reach the level of
interfering with international traffic.
16
[47:15]
AP: They often raise objections to the passage of U.S. military ships
through the South China Sea and they have, at times, taken measures to
block those ships from passing through. The argument that some people
in the mainland make is that free passage does not extend to military
vessels, that that can be considered to be preparing the battlefield for the
future. Does your government believe that these types of military
surveillance activities are normal and should be allowed?
President Ma: Well, certainly all the activities on the oceans, particularly
in international waters, are regulated by the United Nations Convention
on the Law of the Sea of 1982, which came into effect in 1994. It’s very
important to note that there are rules of conduct. For instance, a warship
is not supposed to sail through the territorial waters of other countries, but
if the waters are too narrow in an international strait, then they certainly
have to do certain things to make sure that it’s an innocent passage. There
are rules. I think that each country should follow the rules.
"China has lodged a solemn representation to the United States as the USNS Impeccable conducted activities in China's special economic zone in the South China Sea without China's permission," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told a regular news briefing.
"We demand that the United States put an immediate stop to related activities and take effective measures to prevent similar acts from happening," Ma said.
Passage is not, and has never been, China's complaint. Especially, if it is passing in the open sea far away from its naval bases.China complained about the "activities", not the "passage".
Mr Hutzler, you need to do your homework before an interview, and you need to go back to school to study how to write a report.
This is a great lecture on geopolitics, border of countries and trends and how to avoid border conflicts in future. You can also choose the subtitle in 12 different languages (a drop button in lower left corner), and view the subtitles as well (click interactive transcript). Enjoy!
(Update) One note: many local papers falsely claimed that "China mines all 17 types of rare earths", or even "China is the only country that mines all 17 types". This is WRONG. To start with, there are only 16 elements to be mined, the Promethium is radioactive and decays quickly (the most stable isotope of Promethium lose half of its atoms every 17.7 years). So, nobody, including China, mines Promethium.
In fact, even from the mother of all rumours, this NYT report, this was not really a ban,
Industry officials said that mainland China’s customs agency had notified companies that they were not allowed to ship to Japan any rare earth oxides, rare earth salts or pure rare earth metals, although the shipments are still allowed to go to Hong Kong, Singapore and other destinations. But no ban has been imposed on the export to Japan of semi-processed alloys that combine rare earths with other materials, the officials said. China has been trying to expand its alloy industry to create higher-paying jobs in mining areas, instead of exporting raw materials for initial processing.
So if anything, China was just trying to extract more value-added. Since semi-processed alloys were exported with no disruption even from the NYT source. The alleged "ban" was merely second-handed distortion of the original report. And Reisman was correct that it may well be a general slow down in anything send to Japan (till the end of September).
Having reviewed this, it makes one wonders, if not for the rare earths, what made Japan released the captain in such an abrupt change of stance? IMO, as I wrote in Chinese a couple days earlier, there are two plausible explanations. (1) that the local prosecutor did reached this decision on his own, based on the circumstantial evidence; (2) that what Kan perceived was the determination of the PRC government in even risking a lose-lose fight in this issue, as it directly challenged its legitimacy domestically.
