Sat, Aug 02, 2014 page1

• Japan names five disputed isles

  SEA DISPUTES: In another move likely to rile Beijing, Tokyo said it would give Hanoi six vessels to bolster its capacity to patrol its territorial waters in the South China Sea

  • AP and AFP, TOKYO and HANOI
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  Japan yesterday named five uninhabited small isles belonging to an island group in the center of a dispute with China as part of efforts to reinforce its claim, a move likely to spark anger from Beijing and another claimant, Taiwan.

  The five islands, named after directions of the compass — including Higashi Kojima (East Small Island) and Seihokusei Kojima (West Northwest Small Island) — are part of the group in the East China Sea known as the Senkakus in Japanese and the Diaoyu Archipelago (釣魚群島) in Chinese. Five bigger islands in the group already have names. Chinese and Japanese coast guard ships have regularly confronted each other in surrounding waters.

  The five were among 158 islands that were named yesterday and their list published on a Web site of the Japanese maritime policy department. The other islands elsewhere in the Japanese waters are not disputed. The government said that naming the islands is meant to raise public awareness that they belong to Japan.

  However, assigning names to disputed islands does not change their status. Japan insists the islands lie within its territorial waters; China says they were stolen by Japan in 1895 and should have been returned at the end of World War II. Taiwan, which calls them the Diaoyutais (釣魚台), also claims the islands, but has worked out an arrangement with Japan guaranteeing its fishermen access to the area, and it rejects any notion of joining with Beijing on the matter.

  China and Japan are also at odds over exploitation of East China Sea gas deposits in the area. The disputed waters are surrounded by rich fishing grounds. Chinese coast guard and fishing boats have recently more frequently approached the area, sometimes violating Japan’s waters, especially since Japan’s previous government nationalized the main Senkaku Islands in 2012.

  Ties between Japan and China have worsened in recent years over the island dispute, a contested gas field in the East China Sea and lingering animosity over Japan’s World War II-era actions in China.

  In related news, Tokyo said it would give Hanoi six vessels to boost its capacity to patrol its territorial waters, amid a bitter maritime dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea.

  The deal for the six used vessels, worth ￥500 million (US$5 million), was announced in Hanoi during a two-day visit by Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida aimed at deepening bilateral ties.

  “We hope this will help strengthen the maritime law enforcement capability of Vietnam,” Kishida said at a press briefing with his Vietnamese counterpart, Pham Binh Minh.

  Relations between Vietnam and China plummeted to their worst point in decades in early May after Beijing moved a deep-water oil drilling rig into waters in the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam.

  China withdrew the rig in the middle of last month, a month earlier than initially expected, claiming it had successfully completed the drilling mission.

  While the rig was in place, there were repeated skirmishes between dozens of Chinese and Vietnamese vessels around the rig. Hanoi accused Beijing of ramming and sinking one of its wooden fishing vessels. Beijing denied the allegation, blaming intrusions by Hanoi’s fishing fleet for the incident.

  The rig’s deployment also triggered a wave of violent anti-China riots in Vietnam, which saw some foreign-invested factories vandalized and set on fire.

  “Both Vietnam and Japan agree on maintaining peace and stability in the East China Sea and East Sea,” Fumio said.

  East Sea is the Vietnamese name for the South China Sea.

  He said disputes must be settled “in accordance with international law [and] by peaceful means.”
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