Japan plans to launch ‘police unit’ for disputed islands in E. China Sea
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Tokyo will launch a special police unit, equipped with submachine guns and helicopters, to patrol disputed islands in the East China Sea, police and media said on Monday. The deployment near the tiny islands, known as the ‘Senkakus’ in Japan and the ‘Diaoyu’ in China, could take place early next year, according to broadcaster NHK.
The National Police Agency had put in a budget request for an additional 159 officers to head off “illegal landings on remote islands by armed groups.”
Extra jets from the Japanese coastguard were deployed in 2018 to patrol the islands, where a Chinese nuclear-powered submarine was spotted earlier last year, AFP reported.
The uninhabited islets are at the center of a row between Tokyo and Beijing, which is also involved in a widening dispute with several Southeast Asian countries over islands in the South China Sea. Tokyo has long complained about China’s routine dispatch of coastguard ships to waters surrounding the islands.