Chinese patrol boats enter Japanese waters off Senkaku islands - Mainichi Daily News

In this photo released by Japan Maritime Safety Agency, a Japan Coast Guard patrol boat, foreground, sails by a Chinese vessel in waters off disputed islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, in the East China Sea on Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Japan Maritime Safety Agency)

NAHA (Kyodo) -- Two Chinese fishery patrol boats briefly entered waters near the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands on Wednesday morning, the Japan Coast Guard said, triggering an immediate protest from Tokyo over the incident that could rekindle tension between the two countries.

Following the Chinese patrol boats' entry into the Japan-controlled waters, Vice Foreign Minister Kenichiro Sasae lodged a protest with China's Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at a news conference.

The Japanese government also set up a liaison office to gather more information on the incident and filed a protest with the Chinese Foreign Ministry through the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, according to Japanese officials.

Edano said Sasae summoned the Chinese envoy to "strongly protest" over the incident and stated Japan's basic position that "there is no doubt that the Senkaku Islands, historically and based on international law, are an integral part of Japanese territory."

Cheng told Sasae that he will relay the Japanese protest to Beijing but reiterated China's territorial claim to the disputed islands.

The Japanese vice foreign minister expressed deep regret over the incident, saying Tokyo cannot overlook the Chinese boats' entry into Japanese territorial waters as an innocent passage and requested that China prevent a recurrence, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

The top government spokesman called on China to exercise restraint, saying, "I would like to ask the Chinese side to take appropriate measures from a broad standpoint of (relations between) Japan and China."

Foreign Press Secretary Satoru Sato also urged Beijing to handle the matter appropriately in view of recent efforts to improve bilateral ties, such as China's aid to Japan after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and the two governments' preparations for next year's 40th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties.

A Japanese patrol vessel from the regional coast guard headquarters in Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, found the Chinese boats around 6:15 a.m., 30 to 33 kilometers north-northeast of Kuba Island in the Senkaku islet group.

When the Japanese patrol vessel issued a warning to the Chinese crew, they radioed back, saying, "Diaoyu (the Chinese name for the Senkakus) and its neighboring islands are China's indigenous territories. We are discharging our legitimate duties in Chinese waters," according to the coast guard.

The Chinese patrol boats remained in the territorial waters from 6:36 a.m. to 7:13 a.m. and then moved away before one of them reentered for seven minutes from 7:41 a.m.

They then traveled in the contiguous zone, defined by Japan in line with international law as an area where Japanese laws are applicable just outside its territorial waters, according to the coast guard.

It was the first time since December 2008 that Chinese government-related vessels have entered Japanese waters near the Senkaku Islands. At the time, two Chinese survey ships remained in the territorial waters for nine hours.

On Wednesday afternoon, Edano said the Chinese patrol boats were continuing to navigate in the contiguous zone on a clockwise course and that Tokyo will deal with the vessels based on the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The coast guard's regional headquarters later said the patrol boats had left the zone by around 5 p.m. and headed toward China.

Even though the Chinese vessels' presence in the contiguous zone was not illegal, Tokyo will consider taking some action depending on their movements, including a protest by Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto, Japanese officials said.

The U.N. convention stipulates that the passage of foreign vessels in territorial waters cannot be considered innocent if they engage in activities that threaten the sovereignty of the coastal state or acts of propaganda aimed at affecting the defense or security of that state.

In September last year, tensions flared up between Japan and China over the disputed islands when a private Chinese fishing boat collided with Japanese patrol vessels near the uninhabited islands in the East China Sea.

Edano said since that incident, Chinese vessels have approached the Senkaku Islands on 11 occasions, but without entering Japan's territorial waters.

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Japan summons Chinese envoy over boats' intrusion in disputed waters - AHN | All Headline News

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Japan Protests Chinese Incursion Near Disputed Islands - Voice of America (blog)

Posted Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 at 5:05 am

Japan formally protested to China Wednesday after two Chinese patrol boats entered what Japan considers its territorial waters in the East China Sea.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the Chinese ambassador in Tokyo was summoned to the Foreign Ministry over the incident, which occurred early Wednesday near a disputed island chain known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. The islands are administered by Japan.

Japan's arrest of a Chinese fishing boat captain in the same area last year created a crisis in relations with China that lasted for several months.

Edano said the vice foreign minister told the ambassador the islands are an integral part of Japanese territory, historically and under international law. He said the vice minister demanded that China prevent a recurrence.

The Japanese coast guard said the two fisheries patrol boats approached the islands Wednesday morning and sailed inside of what Japan claims as its 20-kilometer territorial limit.

The coast guard said it radioed a warning to the Chinese boats, which responded that they were acting legally within Chinese territory. It said they stayed for about 40 minutes.

Edano said Chinese vessels have approached the islands several times since last year's incident, but this was the first time they have sailed inside the 20-kilometer zone.

Last year's crisis was sparked when the Japanese arrested a Chinese fishing captain who rammed his trawler into a coast guard vessel.

China responded by breaking off all high-level contact with Japan and restricting the export to Japan of vital rare earth minerals used in high-tech manufacturing.

Tags: China, Japan, Ships
Posted in East Asia Pacific

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Official calls for better sentiments between Chinese, Japanese people - Xinhua

BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Wang Chen, director of China's State Council Information Office, on Sunday called for more efforts to improve the sentiments between the Chinese and Japanese people.

"People-to-people exchanges are heart-to-heart exchanges, which is playing an increasingly important role in the bilateral ties between China and Japan," said the official, adding that those are the best ways to deepening understanding, trust and good feelings between nations.

Wang made the remarks at the 7th annual Beijing-Tokyo Forum held in Beijing to promote understanding and strengthen ties between the two nations.

China and Japan have witnessed great leaps of people-to-people exchanges over the past decades since the normalization of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1972, Wang said.

A total of 5.7 million Chinese and Japanese people visited each other's country in the year of 2010, compared to some 10,000 when the relationship was normalized, according to the official.

"We need to make more efforts to increase dialogue and exchange between the people of the two countries from all walks of life, to make more people become staunch supporters and enthusiastic participants in advancing the China-Japan relations," said the official.

Days before Sunday's forum, a public opinion poll on Chinese and Japanese's views of each other's country was released, showing that 28.6 percent of grassroots Chinese citizens have positive views on Japan, while 20.8 percent of Japanese have positive views on China.

The forum gathered some 300 participants from various circles in the two countries and they conducted dialogues on issues covering politics, economy, media and security.

The forum, held annually since 2005, is jointly organized by China's biggest English newspaper, China Daily, and Genron NPO, a Japanese think tank.

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ASEAN faces a Chinese dilemma

SINGAPORE — As the United States and Europe struggle with heavy debts and weak growth, China increasingly powers the expansion of nearly every economy in the Asia Pacific region. It raises a critical question, particularly for Southeast Asia and Australia: Which are the ties that bind — those of commerce and rising prosperity, or those of national security?

The U.S., in its current straitened circumstances, with one in nine of its workforce unemployed, finds it difficult to compete with China in negotiating attractive trade and investment deals with Asia Pacific nations, even though it remains the world's biggest economy. Instead, U.S. diplomacy and the presence of its armed forces in the region help provide a counter-balance to China's growing military power, a trend underscored on Aug. 10 when China sent its first aircraft carrier for a sea trial.

In the midst of debate last month over freedom of navigation and other maritime issues in the South China Sea during the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting, China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi noted that Asia contributes 50 percent of current global economic growth, and China 26 percent. He added that in the next five years, China's imports are expected to reach around $10 trillion and that most "will be from the countries represented here."

It was a pointed reminder of how China seeks to use its economic clout to cement strategic relations with countries it considers important, among them Australia. China is now Australia's biggest market. Its voracious consumption of Australian minerals, energy and agricultural exports have fueled growth in Australia, even as manufacturing, tourism and consumer spending slow.

The lure of China's giant market has special appeal today with the U.S. and Europe in the doldrums, facing an uncertain future. In contrast, China offers its Asia Pacific neighbors a giant economic engine if they hitch their wagons to the train.

The mutual benefits are evident in the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the largest such accord among developing nations and the third biggest trading block, in terms of GDP, after the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement linking the U.S. , Canada and Mexico.

Since CAFTA came into force at the start of 2010, trade between China and Southeast Asia has mushroomed. China's Commerce Minister Chen Deming said on Aug. 12 that the value of two-way trade has risen from $8 billion in 1991 to nearly $293 billion in 2010, up 37 times. According to Chinese customs figures, it jumped by a further 25 percent in the first half of 2011 from a year earlier, to reach $171 billion. Southeast Asia enjoyed a surplus of nearly $11 billion.

Gao Hucheng, China's vice minister of commerce, said last month he was confident that the annual value of ASEAN-China trade would reach $500 billion by the end of 2015. He added that Beijing did not seek a trade surplus with Southeast Asia and welcomed more imports.

Indeed, some analysts believe that as China shifts from export-led growth to become an economy fueled more by domestic consumption, Southeast Asia will be a prime beneficiary. Chinese imports from the region will grow. In addition, rising wages will prompt Chinese industries to invest in lower-cost parts of Southeast Asia, just as Japan did on a large scale starting in the 1970s.

Already, the commerce ministry in Beijing says that China-ASEAN investment reached $80 billion by mid 2011, with Chinese investment in Southeast Asia amounting to $13 billion. China has become the largest trading partner of ASEAN and its second largest export market, while ASEAN since April has replaced Japan as the third biggest trader with China after the EU and the U.S.

China is a beacon of both rising economic and military strength, a geostrategic pole of the future. However, there is a contradiction that Beijing has been slow to recognize. While the prospect of greater trade and economic integration with China is generally attractive to Southeast Asia, China's growing military strength and assertiveness in the South China Sea and elsewhere repels.

Chinese officials have been urging ASEAN to accept a tradeoff: Do not contest Beijing's "indisputable" claim to control about 80 percent of the maritime heart of Southeast Asia in case it leads to conflict and upsets the promise of a bright economic future.

Yet as U.S. political scientist Minxin Pei pointed out earlier this year, the reality of geopolitics is different. "Nations may be greedy, but the most powerful motivating factor in international relations is fear, particularly the kind inspired by the uncertainty over a rising power."

Several ASEAN member states, including Myanmar, Cambodia and to a lesser extent Laos and even Thailand, have succumbed to the lure of a China-centric region, partly because they are close to China and can see major economic advantage, and partly because they have no maritime claims in the South China Sea.

But others, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, have challenged the legitimacy of China's claims. They have also strengthened their defenses and sought support from the U.S., Japan, India and other outside powers that have interests in the South China Sea. Australia has done likewise.

Economically, China and these countries have never been closer. Strategically, they are being driven apart by divergent aims and mistrust.

Michael Richardson is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore.

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