Sino-Japan tension grows amid disputed Senkaku islands

The Sino-Japanese dispute over the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu in China) has grown more serious. Beijing on Tuesday sent ocean surveillance ships and a large group of fishing boats to the islands while Tokyo dispatched its Self-Defense Force fleet there.

Marking the 81st anniversary of the 1931 Manchurian Incident, a staged event engineered by the Japanese military as a pretext for invading Northern China, Chinese protesters marched in some 100 cities. Beijing and Tokyo face their worst relationship since they formed official diplomatic relations 40 years ago.

Japanese media outlets such as NHK said a surveillance ship of China’s Agriculture Ministry and eight monitoring vessels of the State Oceanic Administration entered and then left the adjacent zone of the islands on the same day. An adjacent zone refers to a territory next to territorial waters (12 to 24 nautical miles or 22.2 to 44.4 kilometers) where a sovereign country has the right to exercise rights such as inspection of vessels.

In response, Japan moved its Self-Defense Force ships near the islands for emergency. A Kyodo News helicopter videotaped what was presumed to be five Chinese fishing boats 25 kilometers north northeast of Uotsuri Island at noon.

The Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television said some 1,000 Chinese fishing boats heading for Senkaku from Zhejiang and Fujian provinces arrived near the islands Monday afternoon but could no longer access the islands due to high waves. The same day, two Japanese nationals approached Uotsuri in a small boat and swam toward the island at 9:30 a.m.

Protestors in Beijing, Shanghai and other major Chinese cities marched to commemorate the 81st anniversary of the Manchurian Incident, chanting “Remember the Manchurian Incident!” and “Diaoyu is Chinese land.”

About 5,000 protestors in Beijing tried to break into the Japanese Embassy, throwing bottles, eggs and fruit. The anti-Japanese protests were triggered by Tokyo’s decision to nationalize the Senkaku Islands last week.

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