Chinese ships enter Japanese territorial water near disputed isles

Three Chinese ships entered on Friday into Japanese territorial water near the disputed Senkaku Islands.

On December 13, Japan scrambled fighter jets after a Chinese government plane entered what Japan considers its airspace over the disputed islets in the East China Sea.

The islands known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese have been at the center of a territorial dispute.  

The incident comes just days before the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) returns to power in Japan with hawkish Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the helm.

Abe has vowed to take a tough stance in the dispute over the islands, which are near potentially huge maritime gas reserves, and has said that the ruling Democratic Party's mishandling of its diplomacy had emboldened China.

Nationalization of the islands in September was intended to keep them out of the hands of a fiery Japanese nationalist politician, to head off a more damaging confrontation with China.

But the move triggered a wave of protests in China that shuttered Japanese factories and stores, disrupted trade and prompted China to strengthen its own claim to the disputed territory. Japanese carmakers saw their sales in China slump in the weeks after the islands were sold.


LBCI/REUTERS