Japan’s naming of disputed islands a ‘farce’ says China
Beijing rejects Tokyo's move to give 160 uninhabited islets in the East China Sea Japanese names, insisting they already have them in Chinese
China’s state media on Sunday slammed Japan’s move to name islands at the edge of its territorial waters claimed by Beijing as a “farce”, saying they already had Chinese names.
Tokyo on Friday named 160 uninhabited islands in the East China Sea which include five in an archipelago known as the Diaoyu Islands in China and the Senkakus in Japan and over which the two nations have long been at loggerheads.
“Japan’s naming farce can’t change China’s sovereignty over Diaoyu Islands,” was the headline of a commentary in China’s state-run news agency Xinhua.
“Japan may believe that giving names to those islets is a show of its sovereignty, but it has to be reminded that those islets have already got a Chinese name,” it added.
China’s foreign ministry, reacting after Tokyo’s move, described the action as “illegal and invalid” and said it did not “change anything to the fact” that the islands belonged to China.
“China is resolutely opposed to Japan’s actions infringing China’s sovereign rights,” spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement.
