Japan, China talks fail amid territorial spat

PanARMENIAN.Net - Diplomats from China and Japan failed to ease tensions over a territorial dispute as the Japanese Coast Guard used water cannons to drive off Taiwanese vessels near the islands at the center of the spat, according to Bloomberg.

Japan’s move this month to buy the islands was “blatantly illegal,” China’s Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun told Japanese counterpart Chikao Kawai today in Beijing, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement. While the two sides agreed to further discussions, Kawai said no consensus had been reached to hold a foreign ministers’ meeting this week at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Kyodo News reported.

The meeting was the first since protests in China last week damaged operations for Japanese companies such as Toyota Motor Corp. and Aeon Co. Japan’s purchase of the islands, known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diayou in Chinese, exacerbated the worst diplomatic crisis since 2005, which has threatened a $340 billion trade relationship between Asia’s two biggest economies.

About 50 Taiwanese fishing boats and patrol vessels left waters administered by Japan after the Japanese Coast Guard fired water cannons at them this morning, the Coast Guard said in a statement. Five Chinese government boats were also spotted in or near what Japan calls its “contiguous zone,” according to a separate statement.

“We will continue to guard the area around the Senkakus intensely and remain in contact with the relevant agencies,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura told reporters today in Tokyo. The clash between the Coast Guard and the Taiwanese boats was broadcast on NHK Television.