Six Chinese maritime surveillance ships briefly entered waters around a group of islands in south China Sea ignoring warnings from the Japanese authorities amid escalating tensions in the region. The Chinese ships arrived near the uninhabited islands -- which Japan calls Senkaku and China calls Diaoyu -- on Friday morning and began patrols. The islands, situated in the East China Sea between Okinawa and Taiwan, are currently under Japanese control, but China claims they have been an "inherent" part of its territory "since ancient times." The long-running argument over who has sovereignty has resulted in occasionally violent acts of public protest.
The United States,a key ally of Japan, has repeatedly urged Tokyo and Beijing to resolve the dispute through dialogue. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will meet with his counterparts in Japan and China during a visit to the region that begins this weekend.
The vessels had all left the waters by mid-afternoon and headed north, the Japanese Coast Guard said later Friday, noting that sea in the area was getting rough as a huge storm, Super Typhoon Sanba, approached from the south. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said Japan would intensify its own patrols of the area in response to what he described as an "unprecedented scale of invasion" of Japanese waters. Tokyo has protested the "inappropriate, illegal act" to the Chinese authorities, Fujimura said. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said Japan would "take all possible measures to ensure security" around the islands.
Two of the Chinese ships responded to a Japanese Coast Guard vessel's warning by reiterating China's territorial claim to the islands and saying they were carrying out patrol work, according to Gega. Japanese ships and helicopters are continuing their own patrols of the area, he said. The controversial Chinese move to begin patrols around the islands follows the Japanese government's purchase of several of the islands from a private Japanese owner earlier this week, a deal that China described as "illegal and invalid."
The purpose of the patrols is "to demonstrate China's jurisdiction over the Diaoyu Islands and its affiliated islets and ensure the country's maritime interests," Xinhua reported Friday, citing a government statement. This week, China announced what it said were the boundaries of its territorial waters around the islands to back up its claim of sovereignty. It said it had filed a copy of the announcement with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday to comply with international law. But Fujimura insisted Friday that the islands are an "integral part of Japanese territory" under international law.