By Focus and AFP | 2025-12-02

TOKYO -- Japanese and Chinese vessels were locked in a new maritime standoff around the disputed Senkaku Islands on December 2, the two countries' coast guards said, as tensions widened across diplomatic channels.

China calls the islands the Diaoyu Islands. Japan administers them and calls them Japanese territory, but Beijing and Taipei both claim them as well.

Sino-Japanese relations have been strained since November, when Japan's new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested that Tokyo could intervene militarily in the event of any Chinese attack on Taiwan.

China claims self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and has not ruled out using force to bring the island under its control.

Menacing a Japanese fishing boat

In the latest incident, China Coast Guard (CCG) vessels approached a Japanese fishing boat, prompting a Japanese patrol ship to order them to leave the area, the Japanese coast guard said.

"The activities of Chinese coast guard vessels navigating within Japan's territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands while asserting their own claims fundamentally violate international law," the coast guard said, adding that the two Chinese vessels, along with others, remained in nearby waters.

CCG spokesman Liu Dejun gave a sharply different account, saying a Japanese fishing vessel had "illegally entered China's territorial waters."

The flare-up followed a November 16 incident in the same waters involving armed Chinese ships that ignored Japanese withdrawal orders, with Beijing defending the patrols as lawful at the time.

These latest maritime run-ins coincide with Beijing's stepped-up political and diplomatic pressure on Tokyo after Takaichi spoke out about Taiwan. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian on December 1 denounced Japan for highlighting its claims to the islands at its National Museum of Territory and Sovereignty.

UN fallout

The maritime friction ran alongside an intensifying exchange at the United Nations (UN). Chinese Ambassador to the UN Fu Cong wrote UN Secretary-General António Guterres on December 2, urging Tokyo to stop "shifting responsibility" for the dispute over Takaichi's remarks, according to South Korea's state-owned Chosun Daily.

An earlier November 21 letter by Fu framed Takaichi's comments about Taiwan as a new military threat.

Japanese Ambassador to the UN Yamazaki Kazuyuki responded on November 25, affirming Tokyo's core "passive defense" posture and rejecting China's argument, according to Reuters.

Some analysts cited by Chinese and Japanese media say Beijing may see Takaichi as a short-term leader and could be prepared to tolerate a further downturn in relations during her tenure.

Taiwan a flashpoint since November

Ties between China and Japan have been strained since Takaichi's comments about Taiwan. Beijing blames Takaichi for causing the deterioration.

At a regular Chinese Foreign Ministry briefing on December 2, spokesman Lin Jian demanded that Tokyo honor its political commitments, retract Takaichi's remarks and "do soul-searching."

Chinese state media including People's Daily, Xinhua and Global Times have amplified criticism, mobilizing military analysts and scholars as Beijing marks the 80th anniversary of defeating Japan in World War II.

However, when Japan surrendered in 1945, the Communists were still four years away from taking power in China.

Beijing is escalating nationalist "wolf warrior" rhetoric and using global bodies and overseas missions to deter Japan from backing Taiwan, the conservative Japanese paper Yomiuri Shimbun said.