09/25/2012, 00.00
JAPAN-CHINA-TAIWAN
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Tokyo fires water cannons against Taipei in Diaoyu / Senkaku"war"

In a NHK video the Japanese coast guards are shown "attacking" 60 Taiwanese vessels with water jets. Tensions in China remain high against Japanese products and locations. The use of patriotism to blind Chinese population. Deputy Foreign Minister of Japan goes to Beijing.

Tokyo (AsiaNews) - The Japan coast guards has fought a brief battle using water cannon against dozens of Taiwanese fishing vessels and some military ships that have tried to enter the territorial waters of the Diaoyu / Senkaku. The islets are contested by Tokyo, Beijing and Taipei.

As Japan's NHK television showed, Japanese coastguards launched jets of high pressure water against vessels flying the flag of Taiwan. In turn, the Taiwanese responded with their water cannons. Taiwan's ships only left the area in the early afternoon.

Osamu Fujimura, cabinet secretary told reporters that eight ships of the Coast Guard in Taiwan and 40 vessels of the island had reached the waters of the Senkaku. A spokesman for Taiwan has confirmed that there were about 60 vessels, within a few kilometers from the coast and thus violating the limit of territorial waters.

The ships had left the day before from the port of Suao in the northeast of the island to affirm the rights of the Taiwanese fishing fleet.

The archipelago is under the sovereignty of the Senkaku in Japan, but the five islets and three atolls are also claimed by China and the Republic of China, namely Taiwan. The tug of war between the two largest economies in Asia has worsened in recent months in which the government of Tokyo has purchased some of the islands owned by a private Japanese citizen. Activists from Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China and Macao have all symbolically planted their flags on one of the islands, but they were taken away by the Japanese guards. In China, there have been massive demonstrations against the Japanese Embassy with acts of vandalism against Japanese cars, products, shops and factories, permitted and even supported by Beijing police.

According to several analysts, China is stoking the flames of patriotism to divert people's attention from the serious economic crisis and internal power struggles of the Party, before the Congress, scheduled for mid-October.

In this war of sovereignty, China eve tolerates the flag of Taiwan, sometimes considered an offense to unity and sovereignty of the People's Republic. Beijing considers Taiwan a "renegade province" and does not allow the presence of its representatives in international fora.

The much disputed islands are a rich fishing area, it is assumed that subsoil there are also large deposits of gas, in addition, their strategic location being along the major shipping routes.

In an attempt to defuse the tension that is likely to hurt the economy of China and Japan, today Chikao Kawai, Japanese Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, has gone to Beijing for a meeting with his counterparts.

 

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