TOKYO: Eleven Chinese government ships entered waters around
Japanese-administered islands Tuesday, Japan's coastguard said, hours after two
Japanese activists swam to one of the disputed islets.
None of the vessels had entered
territorial waters, but all had gone into an area known under international
maritime law as the contiguous zone, in a move that came as fresh anti-Japan
protests rocked Chinese cities.
"As of 4:30pm (0730 GMT), 10
Chinese maritime surveillance ships were spotted in contiguous waters off
Uotsurijima," a coastguard spokesman told AFP, referring to the largest
island in the Senkaku, a chain China calls Diaoyu.
"A fisheries patrol boat
re-entered contiguous waters off Kubajima at 12:16pm but we have not been
informed of its location since."
Earlier in the day, Japan's top
government spokesman said two Japanese had swum to Uotsurijima.
"Two Japanese landed on
Uotsurijima at about 9:30am (0030 GMT)," Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu
Fujimura told reporters. "The coastguard said they have already
left," he said.
Jiji Press, citing police in
Okinawa, said the two were from Japan's main southern island of Kyushu.
They arrived in the area in a small
boat and swam to the island, a spokesman at the coastguard in Okinawa said,
adding they were back in their boat shortly afterwards.
The landing was the fourth by
Japanese this year and came weeks after seven pro-Beijing activists made it
ashore on the same island, marking a sharp downturn in relations between two of
the world's biggest economies.
Earlier in the day, Japan's
coastguard said it had warned away a fisheries patrol vessel that had been
sighted 42 kilometres (26 miles) north-northwest of Uotsurijima at 7:00am (2200
GMT Monday).
The Chinese vessel later moved
close to another island, Kubajima, in the chain.
"Our patrol vessels are
warning it not to enter our country's territorial waters by radio and other
means," the coastguard said in a statement.
The ship had told Japanese
vessels that it was "carrying out legitimate activity", arguing the
islands are Chinese sovereign territory.
Widespread anti-Japanese
protests, some of them violent, have erupted across China in recent days over
the East China Sea islands, which lie in rich fishing waters and on important
shipping lanes.
Major Japanese firms, including
Canon and Honda have suspended operations at several plants in China, according
to officials and reports on Monday.
After meetings in Tokyo with
senior Japanese officials on Monday, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta -- who
later travelled on to Beijing -- urged "calm and restraint on all
sides".
A fresh wave of anti-Japan
rallies was in progress on Tuesday, the anniversary of the 1931 "Mukden
incident" that led to Japan's invasion of Manchuria, which is commemorated
every year in China.
China and Japan have close
economic and business ties, with two-way trade totalling $342.9 billion last
year, according to Chinese figures.
But the two countries' political
relationship is often tense due to the territorial dispute and Chinese
resentment over past conflicts and atrocities.
A landing on the island by
pro-Beijing nationalists in August marked the start of a sudden worsening of
relations between China and Japan.
Tokyo announced last week it had
bought three of the islands, which it administers, from their private Japanese
landowner.
A Taiwanese politician said
Tuesday a group of Taiwanese fishermen were planning to sail this week to the
archipelago.
About 60 fishing boats each
carrying five to six people are expected to head for the islands Saturday from
a port in northeast Taiwan's Ilan county, said Lin Chi-shan, a co-organiser of
the event and a member of Ilan county council.
Taiwan also claims the islands,
which are uninhabited but strategically important.
- AFP/al
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