On February 19, 2009, Vice Foreign Minister Li Hui summoned urgently the Russian ambassador to China Sergey Razov, lodging representation with regards to the Sierra Leone-flagged cargo ship New Star sunk by Russian warship and the missing of 7 Chinese sailors.

Li said that the Chinese side was shocked by and deeply concerned of the incident. It took time to further investigate the details, but the Chinese side could not accept and was strongly dissatisfied with the Russian side’s firing on a Chinese civilian cargo ship and slow actions of rescuing the downed sailors and providing China with the investigation results.

He noted that the Chinese side paid high attention to the incident and strongly demanded the Russian side to completely find out the causes as soon as possible from the perspective of maintaining the bilateral relations and give China a responsible reply. He also required the Russian side to properly settle the rescued Chinese crew members and spare no efforts of searching the missing ones. China retained the right of making further representation on the event.

Razov expressed regret over the serious injury and death of Chinese sailors on the New Star and said that the investigations of related Russian department were ongoing and the Chinese side would be informed of the results in time.

On the afternoon of February 20, Zhang Xiyun, Director-General of the Department of European-Central Asian Affairs of the Foreign Ministry made representation to the Russian minister counselor to China Morgulov Igor, saying that the Chinese side could neither understand nor accept the remarks of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson on the sinking of New Star on February 20 and again stressed China’s demands on the Russian side.