China, Japan trade conflicting accounts of confrontation around Senkaku islands

BEIJING/TOKYO, July 7 (Reuters) – China and Japan reported conflicting accounts on Tuesday of a confrontation near the disputed Senkaku Islands involving their coast guards and a Japanese fishing vessel.

The waters around the islands, which China calls the Diaoyu Islands, are claimed by both Beijing and Tokyo. Both sides have faced off in the waters over the years, deploying patrol boats and urging the other to leave the area.

On Tuesday, China’s Coast Guard said it had expelled a Japanese fishing vessel that “illegally entered the territorial waters” of one of a cluster of disputed islands in the East China Sea.

However, Japan’s Coast Guard said in a statement that it had intercepted and expelled two Chinese Coast Guard vessels by Tuesday morning as they approached a Japanese fishing boat with two crew members on board.

Japan said Chinese vessels asserting Beijing’s claims in its territorial waters around the Senkaku islands violate international law, and that it would continue to respond “calmly and resolutely” under international and domestic law.

(Reporting by Joe Cash in Beijing and Mariko Katsumura in Tokyo; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Michael Perry)