The Japanese Coast Guard yesterday said it spotted a Taiwanese boat near disputed islands in the East China Sea that raised Sino-Japanese tensions last year.
A Taiwanese activist boat was seen at about 6:43am yesterday morning near Japanese territorial waters close to the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) — known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan — Japanese coast guard spokeswoman Mariko Inoue said. The boat had left Japanese waters by late morning, Japan’s coast guard said later.
The islands are claimed by Japan, China and Taiwan. The collision between a Chinese fishing boat and the Japanese Coast Guard near the chain sparked a dispute between the two and helped prompt Tokyo to shift the focus of its defense policy toward China and away from Russia.
Photo: AFP/JAPAN COAST GUARD via JIJI PRESS
Control over the area would give the holder rights to undersea natural gas and oil reserves.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at a press conference in Tokyo that the government has asked Taiwan not to enter Japanese waters.
In related news, in Beijing yesterday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Yang Yi (楊毅) said that it has “indisputable sovereignty” over islands in the South China Sea after the US pledged to help the Philippines, which has its own claims in the area.
He also repeated the Chinese government’s position that safeguarding the sovereignty of the area’s potentially resource-rich islets was a “common responsibility” for Beijing and Taipei.
“China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and their surrounding waters,” Yang told reporters, according to an official transcript.
When asked for comments on Yang’s remarks, Presidential Office spokesman Fan Chiang Tai-chi (范姜泰基) said in Taipei that the government has repeatedly stated authority over the area in the past and that the government will continue to safeguard the area and promote peace in the region.
Fan Chiang said the principles on the sovereignty issue of the islets remained the same, in which the government insisted on authority over the islets and set asides disputes over the area while seeking peace and reciprocal interests in the region.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY MO YAN-CHIH
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