Slipping the net: Illegal Chinese fishermen tie their boats together with rope to escape South Korean coastguards

By LEE MORAN
Updated: 05:34 EST, 18 November 2011

Stick-wielding Chinese fishermen illegally working in South Korean waters tried to evade arrest - by using rope to band their boats together.

The dramatic scenes unfurled on the Yellow Sea, off the South Korean coast near the south western city of Buan, during a three-day crackdown on illegal trawling in the area.

South Korea's coastguard mobilised 12 ships, four helicopters and an elite team of armed soldiers to raid 10 boats.

Running from the law: Chinese fishing boats tied themselves together to try and evade capture from South Korea's coastguard

Desperate: Chinese fishermen (left) try to fend off the advances of the armed commandos by hitting them with wooden sticks, while a coastguard (right) looks at the seized fish

Photographs taken from a helicopter show the armed commandos pulling alongside the boats in rubber dinghies.

As they try to board, the fishermen futilely defend themselves against the powerful automatic weapons with a selection of wooden clubs.

The crackdown is in a maritime zone into which Chinese vessels regularly move in a bid to feed their growing domestic demand for seafood.

Last year the crew of a Chinese trawler and a South Korean patrol ship clashed, leaving one fisherman dead and two missing.

Raid: Commandos boarded the Chinese boats as part of a three-day crackdown on illegal fishing in the Yellow Sea

It  happened as the coast guards tried to prevent Chinese boats from fishing illegally. Video filmed by the coast guard also showed officers fighting with fishermen wielding metal bars.

Four coast guard officers were injured in the incident.

And in nearby waters, a confrontation between two Japanese patrol boats and a Chinese trawler in September 2010 provoked a bitter diplomatic spat.

The area is known as a flashpoint for North and South Korean relations. Last year North Korea, incensed by by live-fire military exercises conducted close to its coast by the U.S. and South Korea - shelled a South Korean island.

All tied up: The Chinese boats (left) tried to evade capture from the South Korean coastguard in the Yellow Sea (right)