China and Japan digging in their heels over disputed islands

Posted on : 2013-01-12 16:32 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Both countries using vessels and aircraft to enhance their sovereignty claims
[%%IMAGE1%%]

By Jeong Nam-ku and Park Min-hee, Tokyo and Beijing correspondents

The Senkaku Islands (called the Diaoyudao Islands in China) have become entrenched as an area over which China and Japan are vying for control. Thus far in 2013, China has begun sending naval surveillance craft and aircraft into the region with greater frequency, while Japan has responded by setting up a 400-member maritime police task force composed of to strengthen its effective control of the area.

In a bid to extend its watch over the seas surrounding Okinawa and the Senkakus, the Japanese Coast Guard has decided to create a maritime police task force charged with guarding the area, the Asahi Shimbun reported on Jan. 11. The force will be composed of 12 1,000-ton patrol vessels and 400 people. Until this point, the Coast Guard had given jurisdiction of the entire southwest region to the 11th Region Headquarters, which has seven 1,000-ton patrol ships.

According to the newspaper, the Japanese government is planning to use reserve funds this year to build four 1,000-ton patrol ships to be ready to serve in the waters around the Senkakus by 2014. In addition, the supplementary budget bill which is about to be drafted will provide for six more patrol ships to be commissioned by 2015. In addition, two 3,000-ton patrol ships that were scheduled to be decommissioned this year will instead be retrofitted for the highest possible speed and put back into service.

China's efforts to undermine Japan's effective control of the Senkakus have been getting bolder this year. From Jan. 7 to the early hours of Jan. 8, four Chinese surveillance craft entered the waters near the Senkaku Islands claimed by Japan as its territorial waters and remained there for 13 hours. To date, this is the longest that a Chinese vessel has remained in Japanese waters. On Jan. 8, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs made a complaint regarding this to the Chinese ambassador in Tokyo.

There have also been more frequent incursions by aircraft into the area near the islands. On Jan. 10 around 2pm, 10 Chinese aircrafts, including fighters, approached within 170km of the north part of the Senkaku Islands. The Chinese fighters made three separate flights, including two to four jets each time.

While this is not inside the airspace claimed by Japan, it is part of the country's air defense identification zone. The Japan Self-Defense Forces scrambled fighters as soon as the aircraft showed up on radar. 

On Jan. 11, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency warned Japan's media not to publish exaggerated accounts of the activity of Chinese military aircraft in the East China Sea, showing how stakes are rising in the game of nerves that the two countries are playing.

On Jan. 10, at a meeting of maritime authorities held in Bejing to determine Chinese policies on the high seas, the Chinese government decided to use naval vessels in regular surveillance activities around the Senkaku Islands, which China claims as its own territory. Since September 2012, when the Japanese government nationalized the three uninhabited islands, Chinese media have been quoting government officials and academics in reports that the government would initiate regular surveillance, but this is the first time that the Chinese government has officially confirmed this plan.

"China may be testing the waters to see how Japan will respond now that the Abe administration has taken over," an article in the Mainichi Shimbun suggested. "It appears that the purpose [of the frequent intrusions by ships and aircrafts] is to put pressure on Japan to acknowledge the existence of a territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands."

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]

button that move to original korean article (클릭시 원문으로 이동하는 버튼)

Related stories

Most viewed articles