BEIJING, March 16 (Portal) – China’s foreign ministry on Thursday opposed Japan’s territorial claims to disputed waters in the East China Sea, calling the move a “grave violation” of Chinese sovereignty.
“Chinese coast guard vessels carried out on-site law enforcement in accordance with the law, it is a legitimate measure to protect Chinese sovereignty,” spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters at a regular news briefing.
Wang made the remarks in response to a question to the Japan Coast Guard that China Coast Guard vessels had violated Japanese territorial waters around the disputed islands in the East China Sea.
The area is claimed by both China and Japan and has long been a sticking point in bilateral relations. China calls the islands Diaoyu while Japan calls them Senkaku.
China’s Coast Guard on Wednesday said it entered the waters around disputed islands in the East China Sea to counter what it called the incursion of Japanese ships into Chinese sovereign waters.
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Chinese Naval Police spokesman Gan Yu said in a statement that coast guard vessels entered the Diaoyu waters for a “normal rights protection patrol” and described it as a “routine movement”.
“(This is also a strong countermeasure against the intrusion of a yacht and several patrol ships from the Japanese side into our territorial waters,” Gan said, although he did not specify an incident.
China’s Coast Guard said in late January that the Shinsei Maru and four other Japanese vessels illegally entered the Diaoyu Islands’ territorial waters before being driven away by China’s Coast Guard vessels.
On Thursday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will hold a summit with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in Tokyo, the first such meeting in Japan in more than a decade, at a time when the United States hopes the two neighbors will have a closer relationship Unity can form a front against Beijing.
Reporting by Eduardo Baptista and the Beijing Newsroom; Edited by Toby Chopra and Christina Fincher
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