Doubt that this is going to get worse, but it does exhibit the tensions caused by a Greater Chinaa policy.
Twenty Chinese activists head for disputed Diaoyu islands
Twenty Chinese activists have set off on two fishing boats bound for the disputed Diaoyu island chain, claimed by Japan, China and Taiwan, state media reported.
According to the Xinhua news agency, the activists from Chinese companies and a non-governmental group will conduct an inspection tour of the islands for tourism purposes.
China has repeatedly claimed the islands as part of its territory and the activists plan to release an object inscribed "Chinese territory Diaoyu Islands" into the sea off the islands, the report said.
One of the organizers, Li Yiqiang, said companies on the Chinese mainland had provided funding support for the mission, for the first time.
Board chairman of Zhongxiang Investment Company, Tong Zeng, said the voyage would be used to investigate fishing conditions and evaluate tourism resources in the area, Xinhua said.
The two boats left Xiamen in eastern Fujian province Tuesday and were scheduled to reach the islands, which are 500 kilometres (310 miles) from Japan's Okinawa Island and 140 kilometres from Taiwan, on Friday morning.
The East China Sea isles are known as Diaoyu in China and Taiwan, and referred to as Senkaku by the Japanese.
Japan declared the islands its own territory in 1895 and they were temporarily put under US control after World War II. They were returned to Japanese rule in 1972 together with Okinawa.
The dispute came to the fore in the early 1970s, when China and Taiwan made claims to the islands after oil deposits were confirmed in the area by a United Nations agency.
It escalated last year when the Japanese government admitted to leasing some of the disputed islands from the Japanese family which has owned them for more than three decades.
The Japanese Coast Guard was last October accused of ramming a boat carrying Chinese and Hong Kong activists as it headed towards the island chain.
"We are always vigilant around the area (with patrol boats and planes)," said a Japan Coast Guard official Thursday, while declining to comment whether the guard had been enhanced because of latest foray to the isles.
channelnewsasia.com
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