Japan Warns Off Chinese Coast Guard Ships Chasing Its Fishing Boat In East China Sea

Another minor skirmish took place in the tense East China Sea last Friday (May 8) when the Japanese Coast Guard (JCG) sent patrol boats and warned a group of Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) ships when they appeared to be chasing a Japanese fishing boat. A group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea called the Diaoyu islands is where the confrontation occurred.

Japan calls the five small islands the Senkakus Islands. They are under Japanese control and situated east of Okinawa at the halfway point between Okinawa and Taiwan. Okinawa is home to a large American troop force and the largest U.S. airbase in the Asia-Pacific region.

China says the Diaoyu Islands have been an integral part of its territory since ancient times and accuses Japan of stealing them in 1895. Last year Beijing sent armed fishing boats to the area and claimed they were merely visiting their traditional fishing grounds. Japan purchased three of the islands in 2012 from a private owner.

According to the Japan Coast Guard, four Chinese vessels entered the area at about 4:00 p.m. The JCG Regional headquarters in Naha told the Jiji Press, a Japanese news outlet, that two of the boats began to pursue the fishing boat near one of the larger islands in the group named Uotsuri.

It took less than an hour for Japanese ships to arrive to confront the Chinese vessels. Three crewmen were on the fishing boat and no injuries were reported. After the warning, the Chinese boats left the area, according to reports.

One Japanese official downplayed the incident saying, “We don’t think that a dangerous event has happened”. The CCG acknowledged their presence using its Weibo social media account to report that a fleet of its vessels had “patrolled the territorial waters around the Diaoyu Islands."

One possible reason given for the CCG presence is that Beijing is demonstrating its claims of sovereignty over the islands. They have placed fishing bans in the East China Sea in areas including the waters that surround the Diaoyu islands. This year the bans were scheduled to start on May 1 and run through Aug. 16.

China has been placing similar fishing bans in the South China Sea since 1995 but they have had little effect on fishing activities by Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan.

China and Japan have tussled over the resource-rich islands for many years and until the global COVID-19 pandemic the relation between the two nations had been cordial.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has visited Beijing twice since 2018 and plans were underway for a reciprocal visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping. The trip was scrapped when the virus became a global pandemic