Japan’s coastguard arrested the captain of a Chinese fishing boat on Sunday for refusing inspection in Japanese territorial waters, in the latest clash between two countries involved in a protracted maritime territorial dispute.
The boat was spotted by the Japanese coast guard near Goto islands off Nagasaki in southwestern Japan and asked to stop with commands and signs in Chinese, but the vessel ignored the call, the Nagasaki Coast Guard Office said yesterday.
The 47-year-old captain of the fishing boat was arrested after a four-and-a-half-hour chase and was detained along with 10 crewmembers. The patrol boat rammed the vessel to stop it getting away.
The incident comes little more than a year after tensions between Japan and China flared up following a detention of a captain of a Chinese trawler that collided with Japanese patrol boats near disputed islands in the East China Sea.
The clash stirred nationalistic outbursts in both countries and severely strained diplomatic relations.
This time, however, the Chinese ship was detained in an area that is not a subject of territorial dispute, the coast guard said, and governments and media of both nations reacted with restraint.
“We have seen these cases in the past. The case is being handled appropriately based on the Japanese law,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura told a regular daily briefing. “We are considering it as an ordinary incident.”
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