Beijing is to carry out a geographical survey of islands in the East China Sea, state media said on Tuesday, the latest salvo in an increasingly tense dispute with Tokyo over the uninhabited territory.
The announcement came as Japanese fighter jets were scrambled in
response to a Chinese state-owned Y-12 plane flying close to -- but not
inside -- the islands' airspace, according to Tokyo's defence ministry.
Separately, official Chinese media reported that Beijing's armed forces
have been instructed this year to train for battle, while a Tokyo
official said US and Japanese fighter jets carried out joint air
exercises.
This week's tensions come after Japan's hawkish Shinzo Abe won a
landslide election victory following campaign promises to re-invigorate
Tokyo's security alliance with Washington and take a more robust line
against Beijing.
The dispute over the islands, known as Diaoyu in Beijing and Senkaku by
Tokyo, which controls them, has simmered on and off for years but
intensified in 2012 when Japan nationalised those it did not already
own, triggering anger and demonstrations in China.
The protests were allowed to take place by the Communist authorities in
Beijing, who use nationalism to bolster their claims to legitimacy,
particularly regarding Japan, which occupied parts of China in the 20th
century.
China has repeatedly sent maritime surveillance ships to the area and
carried out naval exercises, and both Tokyo and Beijing have scrambled
fighter jets to the area in recent weeks in a further escalation.
Commentators say Beijing wants to prove that Japan does not have
effective control over the chain to draw Tokyo into concessions.
The cartographic survey was part of a programme to map China's
"territorial islands and reefs" and safeguard its "maritime rights and
interests", the official Xinhua news agency said, without saying when it
would take place.
It did not make clear whether it would involve activities on land or be
purely sea-based, but quoted Zhang Huifeng, of China's National
Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation, acknowledging
there could be "difficulties".
"There are some difficulties in landing on some islands to survey, and
in surveying and mapping the surrounding sea area of the islands,
because some countries infringed and occupied these islands of China,"
he said.
Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, Northeast Asia director at the International
Crisis Group, said in an e-mail: "Beijing's goal is to establish as
much presence -- if not more than -- Japan in the area to demonstrate
its sovereignty.
"A geological survey is another step in this direction. China has made
it clear that there is no going back to the status quo in which Japan
largely administered the disputed islands on its own."
In September Beijing announced the "base points and baselines of the
territorial waters of the Diaoyu Islands", filing details with the
United Nations as part of the diplomatic sparring over the issue.
China's State Oceanic Administration also released geographic
information including "location maps, three-dimension effect graphs and
sketch maps for the Diaoyu Islands", Xinhua added.
While there have been no actual clashes between the two countries'
forces in the area, Chinese state media said Beijing's military had been
instructed to raise their fighting ability in 2013 and "should focus
closely on the objective of being able to fight and win a battle".
Off Japan, six US FA-18 fighters and around 90 American personnel, with
four Japanese F-4 jets and an unspecified number of people, carried out
joint training exercises in the Pacific, an official said.
The five-day drill followed the nation's first military exercise
designed to recapture "a remote island invaded by an enemy force" on
Sunday.
In October Japan and the US dropped plans for a joint drill to simulate
the retaking of a remote island, reportedly because Tokyo did not wish
to provoke Beijing further.
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