China says Japan ‘hyping up crisis’

China says Japan has been ‘hyping up crisis and deliberately creating tension’ in the relations between Beijing and Tokyo.

On January 30, Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said a Chinese frigate had directed its weapon-targeting radar at a Japanese vessel in the international waters of the East China Sea.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Thursday, “Recently Japan has been hyping up crisis and deliberately creating tension to smear China’s image.”

Also on Thursday, the Japanese defense minister said the move by the Chinese frigate “may amount to a threat of military force under the UN Charter.”

In response to Onodera’s remarks, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said, “This move is counter to the improvement of relations.”

Japan and China have long been in a dispute over the sovereignty of a group of islands in the East China Sea, which would give the owner exclusive oil, mineral and fishing rights in the surrounding waters.

The disputed islands, which are controlled by Japan and form part of Okinawa prefecture, are known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

China presented the United Nations with a detailed explanation of its sovereignty over the disputed islands based on certain geological features in December 2012.

China’s National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation announced on January 15 that Beijing was set to carry out a detailed survey of the disputed isles to “safeguard its maritime rights and interests” and to map the country’s “territorial islands and reefs.”

Tensions heightened between the two countries after Japan signed a deal on September 11, 2012 to buy three of the islands from their private Japanese owner in line with plans to nationalize the archipelago.