Senior Chinese military officials have admitted for the first time that a frigate locked its radar on a Japanese destroyer during the two nations' row over disputed islands, Kyodo News reported Monday. In one of the more serious incidents in an escalating wrangle over ownership of the islands in the East China Sea, Tokyo said the Chinese vessel effectively had a Japanese ship in its sights earlier this year.
Meanwhile, three Chinese marine surveillance ships were seen entering the territorial waters extending 12 nautical miles off one of the islands at around 6:30 pm (0930 GMT), Japan's coastguard said. State-owned Chinese vessels have intermittently cruised near the Tokyo-controlled Senkakus, which China claims as the Diaoyus, since Japan nationalised some of them last September - at times inside territorial waters.
Beijing has consistently denied the allegation of the radar lock and has accused Tokyo of exaggerating the "China threat" in a bid to manipulate world public opinion against its giant neighbour. But Kyodo News cited unidentified senior Chinese military officials as saying the weapons targeting had taken place. The officials, including "flag officers" - those at the rank of admiral, told Kyodo it was an "emergency decision" and not a planned action and was taken by the commander of the frigate, the report said. The Tokyo-datelined report said the comments were made recently but gave no specifics.
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