Some Chinese fishing vessels have used an unusual tactic in an attempt to resist fishery enforcement by the S. Korean Coast Guard in the Yellow Sea–at least ten F/V shoulder to shoulder. Pictures have to be seen.
Asia Security Watch comments by Craig Scanlan are here.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 
I’m not even sure what their doing, the closest example I can think of would be a herd of colorful zebras running from a predator. They could also be under orders from higher to start sparking incedents, ie: poor fishermen resisting capitlistic overlords as they attempted to provide for their families. And all close together like that will give them better chance at taking pictures of brutality against them (I’m doubtful of that), but with a bit of photo-shop… and if it’s for internal chinese propoganda.
My thought was that it would make it possible for them to get excess crewmen together so that they would substantially out number the boarding party and possibly keep them from boarding, but that apparently did not happen, and they could not win at that in the long run anyway if the Koreans are willing to escalate.
i’m not sure what the chineese are up to but it seems to me if they were just trying to exert their non-existant rights to other countries territories they would have gone after the phillipines or vietnam who have less capable cg’s and navies. but i’m just a silly old snipe.
These are of course the actions of F/Vs not the government, but it is an open question if there is a difference since f/Vs participated in the harassment of USNS vessels by the Chinese.
This is certainly not the first time they have had a run-in with the S. Koreans:
http://cgblog.org/2010/12/18/chinese-fv-rams-s-korean-cg-vessel/
They actually seem to be ready to p*ss-off everyone. They have been going after Philippines and Vietnam, see the latest notes here: http://cgblog.org/2010/08/06/chinese-claim-the-entire-south-china-sea-as-sovereign-territory/
They are also messing with the Japanese:
http://cgblog.org/2010/10/28/chinese-and-japanese-coast-guards-another-turn-of-the-screw/comment-page-1/#comment-15643