Japan to free China boat captain at centre of row

TOKYO – Japan was set to release a Chinese trawler captain on Friday at the heart of a fierce territorial row with China that has threatened ties between Asia’s two biggest and increasingly interdependent economies.

A prosecutor from Naha city on Japan’s southern Okinawa island said the decision to release the captain, whose trawler collided this month with two Japanese patrol boats in waters near islands both sides claim, reflected consideration for Sino-Japanese ties. Kyodo news agency said he would be freed and return to China on a chartered plane later the same day.

"It is a fact that there was the possibility that Japan-China relations might worsen or that there were signs of that happening," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku told a news conference. "Our ties are important and both sides must work to enhance our strategic and mutually beneficial relations."

The expected release follows the detention of four Japanese nationals who were being investigated on suspicion of violating Chinese law regarding the protection of military facilities, although Sengoku denied a link between the two matters.

Emotions have run high over the issue in China, where memories of Japan’s invasion and occupation of parts of the country from 1931 to 1945 still fuel public anger.

About 100 protesters in several Chinese cities on Saturday demanded Japan free the captain.

The disputed islets are known as the Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan.

"The Chinese government will welcome this," said Liu Jiangyong, an expert on Japan at Tsinghua University in Beijing. "I think this will be a turning point, a symbolic step, that will now ease the tensions that have risen between China and Japan.

"But the basic issue of jurisdiction over the Diaoyu Islands is a long-term issue that won’t be resolved for a long time. That issue will remain and dealing with it will test the wisdom of politicians on both sides."

The roots of the trawler dispute lie in a long-standing disagreement over sovereignty in an area with potentially rich natural gas resources, but the spat has underscored the fragility of a relationship plagued by wartime past and present rivalry.

INTERTWINED ECONOMIES

China issued a statement bristling at even the possibility of Japan claiming the right to charge the captain.

Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda had warned earlier that worsening ties would be bad for both economies.

"A cooling of relations between Japan and China over the Senkaku problem would be bad for Japan’s economy, but it would also be a minus for China," he told a news conference. "It’s desirable that both sides respond in a calm manner."

Japan’s sluggish economy has become increasingly reliant on China’s dynamism for growth. China has been Japan’s biggest trading partner since 2009 and bilateral trade reached 12.6 trillion yen ($147 billion) in the January-June period, a jump of 34.5 per cent over the same time last year, Japanese data shows.

China has cancelled diplomatic meetings and student visits to protest against the trawler captain’s detention, and concerns simmered that Beijing was holding back shipments of rare earth minerals vital for electronics and auto parts.

Japanese Trade Minister Akihiro Ohata told a separate news conference that Tokyo had confirmed there was no official export ban on rare earth minerals, but added that the ministry was still investigating.

Beijing also has territorial disputes with Southeast Asian nations in the South China Sea, where Washington has come out in favour of a multilateral approach, raising China’s hackles.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan had been distracted by a party leadership challenge that he fended off just last week and is struggling with a strong yen, weak economy, fractious party and divided parliament.

"Japan caves in, Kan acts weak," blared one Japanese tabloid.

Some critics said the year-old Democratic Party government had mishandled the affair from the start, while former prime minister Shinzo Abe blasted the decision to release the captain.

"Southeast Asian countries were probably watching this case closely," Abe said. "International maritime discipline is at risk and so are Japan’s national interests."

A Japanese foreign ministry spokesman confirmed earlier in the day that four Japanese nationals employed by construction firm Fujita Corp. had been detained on suspicion of breaking Chinese laws on the protection of military facilities.

A spokeswoman for Fujita Corp. said five of its employees were missing in China – four Japanese nationals and one Chinese national. The employees were in China in connection with a project to dispose of chemical weapons abandoned in China by the Japanese military at the end of World War Two.