China, Japan give conflicting accounts of confrontation around Senkaku Islands

BEIJING – China and Japan gave conflicting versions of a maritime confrontation involving their coast guards and a Japanese fishing vessel around the disputed Senkaku Islands on Dec 2.

China’s Coast Guard said the Japanese fishing vessel had illegally entered the waters of the Senkaku Islands, which Beijing calls the Diaoyu Islands, before being expelled, in a statement that also claimed the islands are Chinese territory.

China Coast Guard spokesman Liu Dejun said that a Japanese fishing vessel “illegally entered China’s territorial waters”.

“China Coast Guard vessels took necessary control measures and made warnings to drive it away,” Mr Liu said on the China Coast Guard’s official WeChat account.

“The China Coast Guard will continue to conduct rights protection and law enforcement activities in the waters around the Diaoyu Islands, resolutely safeguarding national territorial sovereignty and maritime rights,” he added.

However, Japan’s Coast Guard said it intercepted and expelled two Chinese Coast Guard ships as they approached the fishing vessel in the early hours of Dec 2.

A diplomatic

spat between China and Japan has intensified

since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told Parliament on Nov 7 that a hypothetical Chinese attack on democratically ruled Taiwan could trigger a military response from Tokyo.

China claims self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and has not ruled out using force to take the democratic island.

Beijing has urged its citizens to avoid travel to Japan, and a number of cultural events have been hit – including the halt of

a performance by Japanese singer

Ayumi Hamasaki

in Shanghai on Nov 28.

Aside from reportedly renewing a ban on Japanese seafood imports, China has however so far stopped short of imposing more serious economic measures such as curbing exports of rare earth metals. REUTERS, AFP