East China Sea tensions rise as Chinese coastguard overshadows Japanese mayor’s ‘symbolic’ trip to disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku islands

Tokyo has lodged a diplomatic protest with Beijing and ordered Chinese ships to stay out of its territory after two coastguard ships entered waters near the island chain

The incident coincided with the first trip to the islands by the mayor of Ishigaki, the Japanese municipality that administers the uninhabited islands

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A Chinese coastguard ship cruising near disputed islands known by China as the Diaoyus and by Japan as the Senkakus. Photo: EPA

Published: 4:34pm, 1 Feb 2022

Chinese coastguard ships reportedly approached a Japanese vessel in a disputed area of the East China Sea on Monday, overshadowing a “symbolic” visit to the area by a local mayor.

The presence of the Chinese coastguard ships in waters surrounding a group of disputed islands known in Japan as the Senkakus but in China as the Diaoyus has raised diplomatic temperatures and prompted Tokyo to lodge a complaint with Beijing.

It came almost a year to the day after Beijing introduced a new law allowing its coastguard to use weapons against foreign vessels operating in areas claimed by China and prompted warnings from analysts that the possibility of an accidental clash between vessels from the two countries was rising.

News of the incident emerged after Yoshitaka Nakayama, the mayor of Ishigaki – the Okinawan municipality that administers the five uninhabited islands – sailed for the islands aboard the Bosei Maru, a vessel commissioned by the city government to carry out an oceanographic survey off three of the islands. Nakayama was paying his first trip to the islands, although he chose not to go ashore at any point, instead opting to view the islands of Uotsuri, Kita Kojima and Minami Kojima from the vessel before returning to Ishigaki 170km to the south.

That visit itself could be seen as provocative: Tokyo has consistently refused to grant permission for anyone to go ashore out of concern that such a move could provoke China into an aggressive response. Even so, the city of Ishigaki in 2020 altered the name of the administrative area that covers the islands and applied to the national government for officials to be permitted to land to erect new stone markers bearing the new official name of the territory.

Japanese administered islands in the East China Sea known as the Senkakus in Japan but the Diaoyus in China. Photo: Kyodo

Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor of international relations at Tokyo’s Waseda University, described the mayor’s visit as “symbolic” and an appeal to the “emotions of local people”, saying it was “designed to send a message to both Tokyo and Beijing”.