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Sunday marked 10 years since the Japanese government nationalized the Senkaku Islands in 2012. Over that time, China has been accelerating its maritime advances, with provocative acts by China Coast Guard vessels becoming common around the islands.
Tensions are not likely to ease anytime soon, casting a shadow over efforts to improve bilateral relations between the two countries, which will soon mark the 50th anniversary of the normalization of their diplomatic ties.
In the early morning hours of July 5, a ship called the Zuiho Maru approached Uotsuri Island — one of the Senkaku Islands — in Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture. The vessel has a gross tonnage of 9.7 tons and is operated by a 50-year-old fisherman from Yonaguni in the prefecture.
The shadows of two huge ships, CCG vessels of the several thousand-ton class, emerged in the darkness. The ships had intruded into Japan’s territorial waters and hemmed in the Zuiho Maru, bringing themselves within a few hundred meters of the fishing boat.
Then a Japan Coast Guard patrol ship wedged itself between the vessels, with a “standoff” continuing for some time. The CCG ships stayed in Japan’s territorial waters for 64 hours and 17 minutes, the longest continuous time there by such vessels since the islands were nationalized.
The fisherman was angry, saying in recent years he has been followed by CCG ships more often than ever before.
