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Island dispute rocks Sino-Japan ties
By Willy Wo-Lap Lam, CNN Senior China Analyst
HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Sino-Japanese ties are set for more hiccups as Beijing has protested a right-wing group from Tokyo landing on the disputed Diaoyu islands, known as the Senkakus in Japan. The official media on Tuesday quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan as lodging a protest with Tokyo over the activities of the Japanese Youth League. "This is an action that has severely impinged upon China's territorial sovereignty," Kong said. He added China had "since antiquity" owned the Diaoyu Island and surrounding islets. Kong urged the Japanese government to "take effective means to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents." On Monday morning, nine members of the League stayed briefly on the uninhabited island, which is close to Okinawa. On previously occasions, the same group had tried to erect a lighthouse and a shrine on the supposedly oil-rich archipelago. Diplomatic analysts in Beijing said while a previous war of words over the islands had not led to a serious diplomatic crisis, bilateral ties had soured the past months over issues including the discovery of World War II-vintage bombs left over by the Japan Army. Beijing lodged a strong protest with Japan last weekend when a woman in the northeast city of Qiqihar died after coming into contact with a war-time canister of mustard gas that had been found at a construction site. (Poison gas sickens Chinese) CompensationLast week, government departments and NGOs in China also demanded comprehensive compensation from Tokyo over war-time bombs and poisonous material left in dozens of Chinese cities. Meanwhile, Vice-President Zeng Qinghong met with the former secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Hiromu Nonaka, in Beijing on Monday. While Zeng raised the Qiqihar incident with Nonaka, it is believed that the two veteran politicians had mainly discussed ways to resuscitate bilateral relations. Zeng, a right-hand man of former president Jiang Zemin's, was responsible for high-level links with Japanese politicians during Jiang's 13-year tenure as China's top leader. It is understood that Tokyo is eager to arrange both a China tour by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and a Japan visit by Premier Wen Jiabao.
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