China and Japan talk amid island tensions

(Vatican Radio) Tokyo and Beijing held talks today on reducing tensions. Japan and China are locked in a dispute over uninhabited islands, a dispute which Taiwanese vessels steamed straight into today too.
Dozens of Taiwanese fishing boats approached the Senkaku islands today, escorted by Taiwan coast guard vessels.
They turned away under water cannon from Japanese coast guard ships.
Meanwhile
Japan's vice foreign minister met his Chinese counterpart in Beijing,
they talked about easing tensions, but the Chin's vice foreign minister Zhang Zhijun urged Japan to return to what he called consensus and understandings, perhaps the state of ambiguity that existed over the Senkaku islands until last month.
They've long been administered by Japan, but only in August did the government here
move to put them in state ownership.
Separately today China's navy inaugurated its first ever aircraft carrier, underscoring its ambitions to be a leading maritime power.
Beijing has a planned leadership shakeup this autumn, and Japan holds elections, so neither side can be seen to be weak right now. Listen to Alastair Wanklyn's report