PRC companies in Diaoyutais foray

Twenty Chinese activists on two fishing boats are due to arrive at the disputed Diaoyutai islands this morning, state media reported yesterday.

The Xinhua news agency said activists from Chinese companies and a purported non-governmental group would conduct an inspection tour of the islands for tourism purposes.

China has claimed the islands as part of its territory and the activists plan to release an object inscribed "Chinese territory Diaoyu Islands" into the surrounding sea, the report said.

One of the organizers, Li Yi-qiang, said companies in China had provided funding support for the mission for the first time.

The chairman of the board for the Zhongxiang Investment Company, Tong Zeng, said the voyage would be used to investigate fishing conditions and evaluate tourism resources in the area, Xinhua said.

The two boats left Xiamen on Tuesday and are scheduled to reach the islands this morning.

The Diaoyutais are also claimed by Taiwan and Japan. Japan refers to them as the Senkaku islands.

Japan claimed the islands in 1895, but they were temporarily put under US control after World War II.

They were returned to Japan in 1972,s together with Okinawa.

The dispute came to the fore in the early 1970s, when China and Taiwan laid claim to the islands after oil deposits were confirmed in the area by a UN agency.

The dispute escalated last year when the Japanese government admitted to leasing some of the islands from a Japanese family which has owned them for more than three decades.

The islands are situated 500km from Okinawa and 140km from Taiwan.