(Diayou update) Tokyo to deport activists
(08-16 17:41)
Japan has decided to deport Chinese activists arrested for landing on an island claimed by both Tokyo and Beijing, Kyodo news agency reported, a move that could ease tensions between the Asian rivals.
Fourteen Chinese activists were arrested yesterday after landing and raising a Chinese flag on the rocky, uninhabited isles known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, Reuters reports.
Earlier, China renewed its demand for Japan to release the activists. Beijing said that vice foreign minister Zhang Zhijun, had in a phone call with a Japanese foreign ministry official, "urged that Japan immediately and unconditionally release the people and the vessel.
Japanese media, citing unidentified officials, said the activists, seven of whom waded ashore and planted a Chinese flag on an island, would probably be deported if authorities determined they had done nothing else illegal.
A five-member team, including two Hong Kong immigration officers, has arrived on the Japanese island of Okinawa, to assist the 14 arrested, who include activists from Hong Kong, the mainland and Macau.
The feud over the islands, which lie near potentially rich gas reserves, is one of several fraying Japan's ties with Asian neighbors China and South Korea nearly seven decades after the end of World War Two.
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