Japan, seeking to minimize damage to ties with Beijing, will send seven Chinese activists arrested after landing on a small disputed island back to China after questioning them, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday.
The seven, all men, evaded Japanese Coast Guard vessels to land on the rocky island in the East China Sea on Wednesday, prompting Japan to protest to China through its ambassador in Tokyo and to send 18 police by helicopter to remove them.
In Beijing, about two dozen protesters burned Japanese flags outside Tokyo's embassy in a protest against the arrests.
PHOTO: AP
"The Chinese people cannot be insulted," they chanted.
China, Taiwan and Japan all claim sovereignty over the uninhabited island cluster, which provides access to rich fishing grounds and possible oil deposits in the area.
Beijing calls the islands the Diaoyus and Japan refers to them as the Senkakus.
Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hatsuhisa Takashima said the seven would be questioned by police on the southern island of Okinawa before being sent back to China.
"We do not want to play up this incident as an obstacle to the promotion of better relations between China and Japan," Takashima said of the latest row over the islands, which lie between Okinawa and Taiwan.
China has demanded that Japan ensure the safety of the group and has reiterated its claim to the islands.
The seven Chinese were brought to Naha, the capital of Okinawa, early yesterday for questioning by police.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda expressed hope that the incident would not affect relations between Tokyo and Beijing.
"I hope that this issue will not adversely affect the entire Sino-Japanese relations," Fukuda told reporters.
"But it is crystal clear that the Senkaku islands are our country's indigenous territory."
Ties between the two Asian neighbors have already been strained by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine for war dead, where convicted war criminals are among those honored.
Fukuda said Japan would handle the issue "solemnly" based on domestic and international laws.
"We are investigating whether there is any political intention [behind their landing on the island]," he said.
The Japanese government is trying to dissuade a right-wing Japanese group from making a trip to the island, Takashima said.
"We are aware of it [the planned trip] but we are telling them not to do it," he said.
Japan has formally claimed sovereignty over the islands since 1895 and says Beijing did not stake its claim until the 1970s, when talk emerged of oil resources in the area.
China and Taiwan say their claims go back to ancient times.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, who is due to visit China on April 3 to discuss a range of issues, may raise the islands spat during her talks in Beijing.
"The Senkakus is one of the main bilateral issues between the two countries so she might raise the issue to seek China's cooperation to prevent this kind of thing," Takashima said.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
In front of a secluded temple in southwestern China, Duan Ruru skillfully executes a series of chops and strikes, practicing kung fu techniques she has spent a decade mastering. Chinese martial arts have long been considered a male-dominated sphere, but a cohort of Generation Z women like Duan is challenging that assumption and generating publicity for their particular school of kung fu. “Since I was little, I’ve had a love for martial arts... I thought that girls learning martial arts was super swaggy,” Duan, 23, said. The ancient Emei school where she trains in the mountains of China’s Sichuan Province
DISASTROUS VISIT: The talks in Saudi Arabia come after an altercation at the White House that led to the Ukrainian president leaving without signing a minerals deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was due to arrive in Saudi Arabia yesterday, a day ahead of crucial talks between Ukrainian and US officials on ending the war with Russia. Highly anticipated negotiations today on resolving the three-year conflict would see US and Ukrainian officials meet for the first time since Zelenskiy’s disastrous White House visit last month. Zelenskiy yesterday said that he would meet Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation’s de facto leader, after which his team “will stay for a meeting on Tuesday with the American team.” At the talks in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, US
RSS