Japan Lodges Protest With China Over Sub

Nov. 11, 2004
By KENJI HALL, Associated Press Writer
Yahoo News

TOKYO - Japan lodged a formal protest with Beijing on Friday after determining that a nuclear submarine that entered its territorial waters without identifying itself belonged to China.

Japan's navy had been on alert since Wednesday, when the submarine was first spotted off the nation's southern island of Okinawa. Tokyo sent reconnaissance aircraft and naval destroyers to shadow the submarine, which spent about two hours inside Japanese waters before heading north.

Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura summoned Chinese envoy Cheng Yong-hua to formally protest the incursion and demand an explanation, a ministry spokesman said on condition of anonymity.

Cheng said Chinese authorities were investigating the incident and that he would pass the protest on to Beijing, the spokesman said. Kyodo News Agency quoted Cheng as saying he could not immediately offer an apology.

Earlier, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said Tokyo had concluded that it was a Chinese nuclear submarine after considering a range of factors, including the fact that the vessel appeared to be heading toward China.

Hosoda said that while Tokyo believed in maintaining peaceful diplomatic relations and promoting friendship with China, it expected an appropriate response from Beijing.

"It's up to what follows. We have to take into consideration many things, such as how China responds and Japan's public opinion," he said. "The question is how we deal with this issue in the big picture."

Defense Agency chief Yoshinori Ono lifted Japan's naval alert on Friday, Hosoda said. He didn't specify whether the aircraft and destroyers were returning home.

Earlier, Japanese media had cited defense officials as saying the vessel likely was a Chinese Han class nuclear submarine, based on the noise it was making and the time it had stayed beneath the sea's surface.

Beijing had no immediate comment. On Thursday, China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said she didn't know if the vessel was Chinese and discouraged "any random suppositions on this questions."

Territorial disputes have occasionally flared up between Japan and its neighbors, China, South Korea and Russia.

Tokyo recently accused China of conducting surveys for gas fields that extend into Japanese territorial waters, and in September Japan revived a dispute with Moscow over tiny, frozen islands in the North Pacific that Russia has occupied since World War II.

Japan has been considering ways to boost its maritime defenses after a shoot-out with a suspected North Korean spy ship in December 2001.

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