Japan summons China envoy over islands

Japan’s new nationalist government has summoned China’s ambassador to Tokyo to protest the presence of Chinese ships in waters around islands claimed by both countries.

According to a Tuesday statement by Japan’s Foreign Ministry, the deputy minister for foreign affairs, Akitaka Saiki told Chinese Ambassador Cheng Yonghua to ask his respective government to stop sending the ships to waters around the disputed islands in the East China Sea.

Tokyo and Beijing remain locked in a bitter territorial dispute over the island chain controlled by Japan under the name Senkakus, but claimed by China as the Diaoyus.

The Tuesday protest move came a day after four state-owned Chinese surveillance ships entered the waters surrounding the islands.

Japan’s coastguard issued a statement on Monday, saying that the vessels were spotted moving within 12 nautical miles of the disputed territory.

The owner of the islands would have exclusive oil, mineral, and fishing rights in the surrounding waters.

Reports say it was the 21st time that Chinese ships had been seen in the disputed territory since September.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry also lodged a complaint with the Chinese embassy in Tokyo following the incident.

China’s State Oceanic Administration said in a statement that the ships “continued to patrol territorial waters off China’s Diaoyu Islands.”

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.

Japan’s New Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said that Tokyo will take tough measures regarding the issue. “China is challenging the fact that [the islands] are Japan’s inherent territory,” he stated on December 16, 2012.

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