And it is still news because it is happening now(-ish):
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/49027621/
China surveillance ships enter waters claimed by Japan
Move is latest in long-running territorial dispute between the two nations
Quote:
Six Chinese surveillance ships entered waters near disputed islands claimed by Tokyo and Beijing on Friday, raising the stakes in a long-running territorial row between Asia's two biggest economies.
China's foreign ministry said that the ships entered the disputed waters to carry out maritime surveillance and that for the first time China was carrying out a mission of "law enforcement over its maritime rights".
"It reflects our government's jurisdiction over the Diaoyu islands," it said in a statement. The ministry has used similar language in the past.
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The Japanese coast guard said it ordered the ships to leave Japan's territorial waters, but only two complied, leaving four Chinese vessels still in the disputed area.
No force had been used to remove the Chinese ships, a coast guard official said.
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The tensions with Japan come while China's ruling Communist Party is preoccupied with a forthcoming once-in-a-decade leadership change, as well as slowing economic growth.
Japan's ruling Democrats also face an election, probably late this year, which opinion polls suggest they will lose and the government is under fire for its handling of territorial rows with China, and with South Korea over another island chain.
The United States this week urged both sides to tone down increasingly impassioned exchanges over the longstanding row.
The last time Chinese government-affiliated ships entered Japanese territorial waters near the disputed islands was in mid-July, the coast guard said. That incident ended peacefully and without any significant diplomatic fallout.
The Japanese coast guard described those vessels as fishery patrol ships. The latest ships are civilian government vessels maintained by the State Oceanic Administration to patrol waters claimed by China.
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