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On September 14, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku held his regular press conference at the Prime Minister’s Office following a Cabinet meeting. He reported that a meeting of the Security Council of Japan had been held prior to the Cabinet meeting, and discussions had taken place on how to proceed with revision of the National Defense Program Guidelines. He said that in order to resolve this issue by the end of the year, it had been decided to continue to hold meetings of the Security Council of Japan, and to undertake thorough debate of the issue within the government.
Sengoku also commented on the appearance of a vessel carrying two Taiwanese activists in the vicinity of the Senkaku Islands, to which Taiwan also has declared a territorial claim, in the early hours of September 14. He revealed that the vessel was named “Kanon 99” (“Gratitude 99”), and said that the government had received reports that it had sailed from Taiwan at 4:53 pm the previous day, and was strengthening information gathering efforts on the ground so as to create an effective response toward any invasion of territorial waters and prevention of landings. He went on to state that the vessel had been warned via radio when it had entered an area close to Japan’s territorial waters at 2:53 am on September 14, and that the protester’s vessel had been surrounded by patrol boats and stopped. He said that after the vessel had been stopped, before circling away and returning to be stopped again several times, it had turned back in a westerly direction and had left waters bordering Japanese territorial waters at 7:59 am.
Sengoku stressed that Japan coastguard patrol boats and aircraft would carry out surveillance operations to ensure that the protester’s vessel would not be able to reenter waters close to Japanese territory. He went on to say, “We have established an operations room dealing with activities relating to territorial claims over the Senkaku Islands in the Prime Minister’s Office as of 5 pm on September 13 to respond to the protesters actions in this incident, and have strengthened our overall information-gathering operation. We have also used diplomatic channels to issue a strong protest to Taiwan.”
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