Japan arrests Chinese activists disputed island

Japan has arrested five pro-China activists accused of landing on a Japanese owned island. Taiwan, China and Japan all claim sovereignty over the uninhabited island. Japanese police arrested five activists on Wednesday who had sailed from Hong Kong for violating immigration laws. Seven pro-China protestors landed on one of the chain of islands in the East China Sea known as Diaoya in China, Senkaku in Japan and Tiaoyutai in Taiwan. All three countries claim sovereignty over the unoccupied islets, situated near rich fishing waters and large oil reserves. The men, all belonging to the Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands, sought to declare China's territorial claim to a group of Japanese-controlled islands, said the protest group's leader. The men swam to the island from their Chinese-flagged fishing vessel despite coming under water cannon fire and were apprehended shortly after making their way to shore. "The Okinawa prefectural police arrested five men for violation of the immigration control law on Uotsuijima island," a police spokesperson told AFP.Two of the men returned to the boat and were not arrested, but are being questioned by authorities, they added. "They were showing warning placards and talking through loud speakers in Mandarin to warn us off, but we just kept going," said David Ko, spokesperson for the activist group in a phone call to Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK on Wednesday. "The only weapon we have is to ignore them and keep going forward and that is what we are doing," he added. Japanese officials are taking the matter up with Chinese and Hong Kong officials via diplomatic channels, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda told reporters he will "deal with the incident strictly in line with the law." The group's landing coincided with the 67th anniversary of Japan's surrender at the end of World War II and has heightened tensions between Japan and its Asian neighbors. Japanis currently disputing the ownership of another archipelago with South Korea.