Japan warned China on Tuesday that ties were “deteriorating markedly” over disputed East China Sea islets, and China’s envoy in Tokyo reiterated Beijing’s stance that the specks of land were its territory and called for talks to resolve the row.
Tensions between Asia’s two largest economies have risen since Japan saw an increasing number of Chinese coastguard and other government ships sailing near the disputed islets, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, over the past few days.
Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida called in Chinese ambassador Cheng Yonghua for the second time since Friday and told him that China was trying to change the status quo unilaterally, a Japanese foreign ministry statement said.
It also said Kishida told Cheng that the environment surrounding Sino-Japanese ties was deteriorating markedly. Cheng said after the meeting that he told Kishida the islands were an integral part of China’s territory and that the dispute should be resolved through diplomacy and dialogue. “I told him that … it is natural that Chinese ships conduct activity in the waters in question,” he told reporters.
(Sourced from agencies, Feature image courtesy:thehindu.com)
