Tensions between China and Japan bumped back up a notch yesterday when Tokyo asked Beijing to pay for damages to patrol boats hit by a Chinese fishing vessel in disputed waters, countering China’s demand for an apology over the incident.
The diplomatic back-and-forth shows that nationalistic sentiments stirred up by the incident — and the territorial dispute behind it — are not fading even after Tokyo released the captain on Friday amid intense pressure from China.
Welcoming the skipper home as a hero, China stunned Japan over the weekend by demanding an apology and compensation for his arrest, a move that reflects Beijing’s growing self-confidence and its attempts to test the resolve of key neighbors such as Japan, Washington’s closest ally in the region.
Criticized at home for caving in to Chinese pressure, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s government responded by issuing its own demand for compensation and calling on Beijing to decide whether it wanted to repair frayed ties.
“At this point, the ball is now in China’s court,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku said.
The tension has spread into other areas too.
Logistic companies said China has stepped up customs inspections of goods shipped to and from Japan, slowing trade between the world’s No. 2 and No. 3 economies. China was also continuing to hold four Japanese employees of a construction company suspected of entering a military zone without authorization and illegally filming military facilities.
Some experts saw China’s demand for an apology as overreaching — and bad publicity in a region where neighbors are already concerned about the nation’s expanding military and political clout. China is embroiled in several other territorial disputes.
“Beijing has scored an own-goal here. It really reflects badly on them,” said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University’s Tokyo campus. “All that smile diplomacy, reassuring regional neighbors that the rise of China is unthreatening, has just gone up in smoke.”
More broadly, the dispute and others have created openings for greater US engagement in Asia as China begins to vie with the US for dominance in the region.
The Sept. 7 collision happened near the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in the East China Sea about 190km east of Taiwan. The islands are controlled by Japan, but also claimed by Taiwan and China.
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