Japan wards off Chinese coastguard vessels caught chasing fishing boat in East China Sea
- Incident happened on Friday afternoon in waters close to Diaoyu Islands, which are controlled by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing
- Japanese fishing boat had three crew members on board but no one was hurt, reports say
Japan said it deployed patrols and issued warnings to a group of Chinese coastguard vessels spotted pursuing a Japanese fishing boat in the hotly contested waters of the East China Sea on Friday.
The Japan Coast Guard said on Saturday that four Chinese coastguard vessels entered waters close to the Diaoyu Islands – a group of uninhabited islands controlled by Tokyo and known locally as known as Senkaku – at about 4pm.
The face-off took place about 50 minutes later, when two of the Chinese vessels began to chase a Japanese fishing boat in a stretch of water about 12km (7.5 miles) southwest of Uotsuri, one of the largest islands in the group, news agency Jiji Press cited the coastguard’s regional headquarters in Naha as saying.
After the maritime agency sent patrol ships to the scene and issued a warning over the radio, the Chinese ships left the area, the report said.
The fishing vessel had three crew members on board at the time of the pursuit but no one was hurt, it said.
An unnamed official from the Japanese coastguard was quoted as saying that “we don’t think that a dangerous event has happened”.