JAKARTA - China and Japan are again involved in tensions over the dispute over small islands in the East China Sea, where both sides accuse each other of violating maritime boundaries.
China says the islands are its own and refuse to recognize Japan's claim to a series of uninhabited islands known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese.
Taiwan also claims the archipelago, called Diaoyutai, has signed an access agreement for its fishermen with Japan and has not actively participated in the dispute.
China routinely sends coast guard ships and aircraft to the waters and airspace around the archipelago, to disrupt Japanese ships in the area and force Japan to deploy its fighter jets in response.
On Wednesday, a Chinese coast guard spokesman said Chinese ships had "expelled several Japanese ships illegally entering territorial waters." The unnamed official said the action was a routine measure to safeguard maritime sovereignty and interests.
On Thursday, Japanese coast guard forces said Chinese coast guard vessels violated Japanese territorial waters around the archipelago, had repeatedly been asked to leave and not approach Japanese fishing vessels operating in the area.
Separately, China's Foreign Ministry on the same day retaliated Japan's territorial claims of disputed waters in the East China Sea, and called the action a "heavy violation" of China's sovereignty.
"China coast guard ships enforce law enforcement at the scene in accordance with the law, this is a legitimate act to protect China's sovereignty," spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters at a regular press conference.
Wang made the remarks in response to questions about Japanese coast guard, who said Chinese coast guard vessels violated Japanese territorial waters around disputed small islands in the East China Sea.
Meanwhile, Chinese Navy spokesman Gan Yu said in a statement that Chinese coast guard ships entered Diaoyu waters to carry out "normal rights protection patrols", calling them "routine measures".
"(This is also a firm countermeasure against the intrusion of a cruise ship and several Japanese patrol boats into our territorial waters," Gan said, although he did not specify any incidents.
Unlike the busy islands of the South China Sea, which China claims are almost as a whole, the Senkaku/Diaoyu chain located between Okinawa and Taiwan is not strategically important.
However, China has made it the driver of a campaign to rally nationalism based on memories of Japan's brutal invasion and the occupation of large parts of China which ended in 1945.
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