Cheng told reporters after the meeting he reiterated Beijing’s official stance that the islands belong to China and called it “only natural” that Chinese ships “operate in this region”.
Advertisement
High-level dialogue between China and Japan was suspended for two years prior to a meeting in November 2014 between leaders due to tension following the Japanese government’s purchase of three of the disputed islands in September 2012.
On Tuesday, Japan’s coast guard was reported as saying that at one point it had spotted 13 Chinese government vessels in the contiguous zone just beyond Japanese waters around the Senkakus, while on Monday, 15 such vessels were reported to have sailed in the zone.
It also said Kishida told Cheng that the environment surrounding Sino-Japanese ties was deteriorating markedly. Cheng was called in by Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama last Friday over the incursions into what Japan see as its territorial waters.
“While many Indian people have been focused on the South China Sea ahead of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s upcoming trip to the country, less attention has been paid to the recent fall in exports of made-in-India products to China”, it said.It said India should move its focus from geopolitical competition to economic issues to stop a further decline in exports to China.
The ruling also declared that China’s construction work on Mischief Reef had violated the Philippines’ sovereignty rights.
The photographs indicating further militarisation of the already tense region emerged less than a month after an global tribunal ruled that China doesn’t have historical rights over the South China Sea, handing petitioner and Beijing’s much smaller neighbour, the Philippines, a boost in the ongoing tussle.
China claims the Japan-controlled Senkakus, which it calls Diaoyu.
The think-tank said in a report there was little evidence that China had deployed military aircraft to the outposts, but the “rapid construction” of reinforced hangars suggested that was likely to change.
“They’re reinforced to take a strike”.
China claims most of the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims.
The United States has urged China and other claimants not to militarize their holdings in the South China Sea.
China has repeatedly denied doing so and has in turn criticized USA patrols and exercises for ramping up tensions.
Advertisement
The hangars were constructed on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs, part of the Spratly Islands.
