Japan frees skipper at centre of maritime row

Japan yesterday freed the Chinese fishing boat captain whose arrest in disputed waters over two weeks ago sparked the worst row in years between the Asian giants.

Japanese prosecutors cited the deepening rift between Beijing and Tokyo in their decision to release the captain, who was arrested after his boat collided with two Japanese coastguard vessels in the East China Sea.

“Considering the impact on Japan’s people and the Japan-China relationship, we decided it would not be worth continuing detaining and investigating the captain,” said Naha district deputy chief prosecutor Toru Suzuki.

The Chinese captain, Zhan Qixiong, 41, had acted on the spur of the moment and not committed a premeditated criminal act, and he had no prior criminal record in Japan, said Mr Suzuki in a televised press conference.

China’s Xinhua news agency, citing the foreign ministry said Zhan had flown out of Japan’s southern Okinawa island prefecture early on Saturday.

“Zhan Qixiong, the trawler captain who had been illegally detained by Japanese authorities since September 8, left Japan at 1.12 a.m. Beijing time Saturday (1712 GMT yesterday) on the charter flight with a joint work team from the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Agriculture,” Xinhua said.

The top spokesman for Japan’s centre-left Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who was at the UN General Assembly in New York, said the decision was taken by prosecutors alone, and not because of political pressure.

But the conservative opposition was quick to lash out at what it saw as a loss of face for Japan, which has this year been overtaken by traditional rival China as the world’s number two economy.

“It was an extremely foolish decision,” said hawkish former prime minister Shinzo Abe of the Liberal Democratic Party, Jiji Press reported.