SEOUL (Yonhap) -- South Korea is at no fault in last week's sinking of a Chinese fishing boat in the Yellow Sea because the country was legitimately enforcing a law on suspected illegal fishing, an official said Wednesday.

South Korea also has a video and other evidence clearly showing that the Chinese boat slammed into a South Korean Coast Guard vessel, apparently deliberately, before sinking, and the country is willing to allow China to view investigation records, a foreign ministry official said requesting anonymity.
Seoul wants to handle the case through close cooperation with China, he said.
The remarks came a day after China's foreign ministry claimed that the South's Coast Guard is to blame for the incident that left one Chinese fisherman dead and another missing. The minister demanded that Seoul punish those responsible and make compensations for human and property damage.
The 63-ton boat overturned and sank Saturday about 72 miles off South Korea's western port city of Gunsan after slamming into the 3,000-ton patrol vessel. At the time, Coast Guard officers were trying to board another Chinese fishing boat that fled the South's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in defiance of an order to stop, given because of suspected illegal fishing.
The site of the sinking was not inside the South's EEZ.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu claimed that the South has no right to crack down on Chinese boats in the neutral waters. She also said there should not be a collision with a fishing boat, apparently suggesting that the patrol vessel rammed into the small boat.
But the South's official countered that the sunken boat appears to have struck the patrol ship while apparently trying to obstruct the search operation on the other fishing boat. A video of the accident clearly shows the patrol ship almost standing still when the fishing boat rammed into it, he said.
The official also said the South has the right to stop and inspect the fishing boat even in neutral waters because it ignored an earlier order to stop in the country's EEZ and fled. Chasing a fleeing vessel is a right guaranteed under the UN maritime law, he said.
""Escalating this issue into a diplomatic row is not desirable for both us and China,"" the official said. ""We expressed condolences over the lives lost, and we are willing to allow the Chinese side to attend our investigation.""
China has not yet delivered its position on the issue through diplomatic channels, he said.
On Monday, the Coast Guard invited diplomats from China's embassy and showed them the video of the accident and a radar image, the official said, declining to say how the Chinese officials reacted after seeing the evidence.
""South Korea does not want a cooperation project with China to unravel,"" the official said.