At around 6:30 a.m. patrolling officers spotted the Chinese-flagged fishing boat with four men onboard around 11 nautical miles to the northwest of the province’s Con Co Island.

Colonel Tran Manh Hung, deputy chief of staff of the Quang Tri Border Guard, responded by dispatching two patrol boats to stop the illegal fishing.

Seeing the Vietnamese vessels, the Chinese boat tried to flee but the border guards caught up, issued warnings and ordered the four fishermen and their boat to leave Vietnamese waters.

This is not the first time Vietnam has caught Chinese vessels trespassing into Vietnamese waters for illegal fishing.

Last year, the fisheries surveillance forces gave chase and drove away several Chinese vessels off the northern Hai Phong.