Tokyo will create a naval force responsible for defending the Senkaku

Japan announced Tuesday the creation of a special force of 600 men and 12 vessels to monitor and protect the Senkaku archipelago in the East China Sea that Beijing him fight as the Diaoyu.

According to a spokesman for the Japan Coast Guard, the future include special unit, in addition to two existing helicopter carrier, ten new buildings 1000 tons and 600 men. It will be complete within three years.

Currently the Japanese patrol and monitor these islands occur during Chinese naval incursions are part of the unit based on the island of Okinawa, strong 900 men.

Four of the ten additional vessels under construction and are already financed by funds allocated to the Coast Guard in 2012, the other six being financed by a supplementary budget approved in mid-January, the same official added.


Once naval force constituted coastguard ask the government the green light to hire 500 men on the 2014-2015 budget, the other 100 constituting the crew of two helicopter carriers.

This unit will be based closer to the disputed archipelago, on the island of Ishigaki, about 175 km southeast of Uotsurijima, the main island of the archipelago of discord. This string of uninhabited islands located 200 km north-east coast of Taiwan and 400 km west of the island of Okinawa. In addition to its strategic position, it would conceal island chain of hydrocarbon deposits.

Beijing and Taiwan regularly send ships, planes and more recently, around the Senkaku since Tokyo in September nationalized three of the five islands that compose it by buying their own private Japanese. The conflict was then abruptly worsened, including a week of anti-Japanese demonstrations, sometimes violent, throughout China. Since then, relations between the two Asian giants are at their lowest.