China sends 1,000 boats armada to disputed island chain

[Bosonic]

Source: The Telegraph

Around 1,000 Chinese fishing boats have been mobilised to sail to an island chain controlled by Japan, as the quarrel between the two countries fuelled a seventh day of protests.

Chinese fishing boats, which often seem suspiciously well-drilled and organised, have clashed with the Japanese coastguard over the Diaoyu, or Senkaku, islands before, but never in such numbers.

The fishing boats may also be joined by six Chinese maritime patrol ships, which briefly entered Japanese waters last Friday in a show of defiance.

The spat over the islands, which has been rumbling for decades, intensified last week after Japan announced it had bought some of the archipelago for the nation from a private Japanese family.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9548059/China-sends-1000-boats-armada-to-disputed-island-chain.html

[jsr]

1. Fishing boats are their new Boxers

[Bosonic]

2. pic

[psychopomp]

3. That pic puts it into perspective

Until now, there has been no confirmation that the flotilla even took place. The numbers are probably in the low hundreds, still enough to cause problems for JCG.

[Art_from_Ark]

4. Meanwhile, the latest news about the Senkaku Islands from NHK

only says that an Okinawan fishing boat was off the coast of one of the islands whose characters mean, appropriately enough, "Fishing Island". Two of the people on the boat jumped off and swam to the island. Now they are being questioned by police because civilians, even if they are Japanese citizens, are not allowed to make landfall on the islands.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20120918/t10015086791000.html

[Bosonic]

5. NEWS ADVISORY: 11 China ships sailing in contiguous zone near Senkakus: Coast Guard

NEWS ADVISORY: 11 China ships sailing in contiguous zone near Senkakus: Coast Guard

https://twitter.com/KyodoNewsENG/status/247966052774989824

(Not quite 1000, yet)