bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Minnie Chan

A Chinese trawler captain at the centre of a diplomatic row between Beijing and Tokyo says he hopes the central government will deal with Japan's demand for 14.3 million yen (HK$1.33 million) in compensation.
Zhan Qixiong's boat collided with two Japanese coastguard vessels in disputed waters near the Diaoyu Islands last year.
Zhan, 41, said he first thought that the Japanese authorities had decided to compensate him for his 17 days in detention, as demanded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing.
Its demands for an apology and compensation from Tokyo on September 25 last year, the day after Zhan's arrest, were not successful.
'I think our government will help me to deal with the Japanese,' Zhan said by telephone from his home in Shenhu township, in Jinjiang , Fujian .
Zhan's 63-year-old mother said officials from the  local police station had visited their home on February 1, mentioning something about more than one million yuan (HK$1.18 million) in compensation. 
'But none of us could make out clearly what it was all about,' she said. 'We all thought it wasn't a big deal because the incident is over.
'Personally, I believe it should be the Japanese authorities paying our government.'
Japanese media said the coastguard sent the bill to Zhan on Thursday, demanding that he pay for repairs to 'two coastguard patrol vessels and the remainder for other costs including money spent to dispatch officials'.
Sino-Japanese relations experts in Beijing said the bill threatened to set back thawing ties.
'The incident was supposed to be over after the court in Okinawa decided not to charge Zhan and released him,' Liu Jiangyong ,  a professor of international relations at Tsinghua University, said, adding that Beijing should ignore the bill.
'The unreasonable bill sends a very unfriendly signal to Beijing, which will definitely obstruct Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan's plan to visit Beijing later this year as well as the normalisation of SinoJapanese relations.'
Jiang Lifeng, former director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Japanese Studies, said the foreign ministry's failure in seeking an apology and compensation from Tokyo for Zhan's 'unlawful detention' was to blame for the unexpected bill.
'Our foreign ministry was not strong enough when dealing with the Japanese authorities,' Jiang said. 'Our diplomatic officials' careless mistake provided the Japanese authorities with the chance to make a false countercharge against us.'
There was no comment from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Japanese authorities detained Zhan and 14 other Chinese fishermen near the disputed Diaoyus in the East China Sea, known as the Senkakus in Japan, after their trawler collided with two Japanese coastguard ships on September 7. 
The incident triggered powerful anti-Japanese sentiment among the Chinese public. Zhan was released on September 24 after repeated requests and protests from Beijing.



Diaoyus captain thought bill was a cheque