Friday, September 24, 2010

Japan will release their captain anglers who catch


Japan will free a Chinese fishing captain, whose arrest touched off a diplomatic storm between Beijing and Tokyo, Japan's coast guard said Friday.

"We decided to suspend the charges in consideration of the Japan-China relationship," said the Japanese prosecutor in the case.

In China, the captain's wife, Chen Tingting, said she was thrilled.

"We are so happy, we are just really very happy to hear the news," she said.

But she did not know when he would return home to Jinjiang city, in the southern province of Fujian.

Japanese officials gave no time frame for freeing the captain, but it could take several days, because of logistics.

China will send a chartered flight to pickup the captain, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on its website.

The captain was arrested on September 8 off the disputed Diaoyu Islands, in the East China Sea, after his vessel crashed into two Japanese patrol boats. He is accused of obstructing Japanese public officers while they performed duties.

"The Japanese side bears full responsibility for the current situation, and it shall bear all the consequences that arise," Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Tuesday in New York, as China escalated demands for the captain's release. Wen was in New York for the U.N. General Assembly.

Word of his release quickly followed the arrest of four Japanese nationals in China. The four are being investigated for entering a military zone without authorization and videotaping military targets, Chinese state media said.

Neither country linked the captain's case with the arrest of the four Japanese nationals, however.

The four Japanese nationals were sent to China for a Japanese government project to reclaim World War II chemical weapons left by Japan's Imperial Army, their company said Friday. A Chinese national also is missing and presumed arrested with his Japanese co-workers on Wednesday in in northern Hebei Province.

They work for Fujita Corp., a mid-size Japanese construction company that Goldman Sachs Group acquired in April 2009.

Japan's foreign ministry officials said Friday that China had informed them of the arrests, but they had no information about any charges or why the Japanese nationals had been detained.

"Currently, the case is being investigated," is all that Chinese security authorities in Shijiazhuang said in a statement, the state-run China Daily reported.

But Beijing had plenty to say about Japan detaining the Chinese fishing captain. Japan illegally arrested him and his crew of 14, China said.

Beijing says the Diaoyu Islands and most of the South China Sea belong to China, disputing neighboring countries' claims. In Japan, the islands are known as the Senkaku. The clash over territorial waters and islands -- and the natural resources that go with them -- is a flash point in the Asia-Pacific region.

Japan earlier this month freed the fishing captain's crew. They flew back to China, and a substitute crew sailed their boat there.

China's foreign ministry said that Japan has "seriously damaged Sino-Japan bilateral relations" with the arrest of the captain and his crew.

In response, China halted talks with Japan about increasing civil flights and expanding aviation rights between the two countries. Officials and nationals on both sides also canceled trips to each other's nations. Related Posts with Thumbnails

Stumble
Delicious
Technorati
Twitter
Facebook

0 Comments:

 

Information And Technology Copyright © 2010 IT is Designed by hantu-facebook