Rescue of blazing boat by frigate seen as PLA statement in East China Sea

A naval frigate came to the rescue of a Zhejiang fishing boat on fire near disputed waters in the East China Sea, shedding light on the People’s Liberation Army’s readiness to deploy in the region amid the simmering territorial spat with Japan.

The missile frigate Zhoushan sailed at high speed for 3½ hours to reach the burning boat late on Friday, 280 kilometres west-northwest of Amami-Oshima in Kagoshima Prefecture.

It arrived ahead of three Japanese coastguard patrol ships that responded to an earlier request by China for help, according to mainland media and Japan’s Kyodo news agency. Xinhua reported six of the 24 people aboard died in the blaze.

Chinese ships have entered disputed-islands waters, claims Japan

Tokyo: Three Chinese government ships entered the waters of disputed Tokyo-controlled islands on Monday, Japan’s coastguard said, as a long-running row shows no sign of fading.

China sends ships back to waters off disputed Japanese-controlled islands

The four maritime surveillance ships entered the waters shortly after 12.30pm (3.30am GMT), Japan’s coastguard said in a statement, adding that it was telling the ships to leave the area.

“Patrol ships from our agency have been telling them to sail outside of our territorial waters. There has not been any response” from the Chinese ships, the agency said.