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| Sunday, 14 November 2004 |
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China maintains silence on Japanese submarine charge SHANGHAI, Saturday (Reuters) China maintained a stony silence on Saturday in the face of Japan's charges that one of its nuclear-powered submarines intruded into Japanese waters this week. Japan mobilised its navy for the first time in five years on Wednesday after the submarine was spotted near the Okinawa islands, 1,600 km (1,000 miles) southwest of Tokyo. The intrusion was brief and no warning shots were fired, but the mobilisation was a rare display of Japan's military response. The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Saturday reiterated its comment on Friday that it was conferring with other government departments over Japan's charges, a spokesman said. Official Chinese media outlets carried no reports of Japan's accusations on Saturday. Military analysts have said that, apart from the United States, China was the only country regularly operating nuclear-powered submarines in the area. Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura summoned Cheng Yonghua, a senior official at the Chinese embassy in Tokyo, to lodge a protest and demanded an explanation and an apology for the intrusion. Japanese media had quoted military sources as saying the submarine was Chinese, but the government had not previously confirmed those reports. Some analysts said that was because it did not want to worsen its fragile relations with China. The incident has fuelled fears in Japan about the military threat posed by China and is likely to further dent relations between the Asian neighbours, still plagued by memories of Japan's occupation of parts of China in the 1930s and 1940s. China has been angered by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are honoured along with other war dead, and plans for a summit have been put on hold. |
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