Colleen Howe
BEIJING, Jan 30 (Reuters) – China’s coast guard said on Friday it has been patrolling Japanese-administered islands in the East China Sea almost every day for the past year, aiming to ensure its sovereignty over the remote, rocky outpost and prevent Taiwan from taking steps toward independence.
Patrols near the tiny islands, known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, could escalate tensions as Beijing and Tokyo are embroiled in their biggest diplomatic spat in more than a decade after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Japan might intervene if China attacks Taiwan.
China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its territory and has never given up the use of force to “unify” Taiwan. Taiwan’s government rejects China’s sovereignty claims and says only the Taiwanese people can determine their own destiny.
Coast Guard Chief Zhang Jianming said at a maritime law enforcement press conference that China Coast Guard patrolled the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands for 357 days last year. In the past five years, a total of 134 patrols around the island have been organized, with 550,000 ships and 6,000 aircraft sorties dispatched.
Reuters reported in May that Beijing appears to be stepping up coast guard and naval activities in the East China Sea and other waters in an attempt to strengthen its dominance in the region.
The Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands are part of the strategic first island chain, which stretches from Japan to Taiwan and the Philippines. The chain of islands is controlled by U.S. allies and curbs the expansion of China’s growing naval power.
The last major maritime dispute occurred in 2010, when Japan’s coast guard detained the captain of a Chinese fishing vessel that collided with a Japanese vessel near the Senkakus, triggering a diplomatic crisis.
Tensions increased again in 2012 when the Japanese government announced it had purchased some of the disputed islands from private Japanese owners. China responded by dispatching patrol ships.
The latest conflict in the region occurred last month, when China said it had expelled an “illegal” Japanese fishing boat from waters around the Senkakus, while Japan said it intercepted and expelled two Chinese coast guard vessels that approached the vessel.
Tokyo has since started encouraging fishermen to avoid the islands to avoid further escalating tensions, Reuters reported. Japan declined to comment.
(Reporting by Colleen Howe; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and William Mallard)
