Japan seizes Chinese fishing boat amid high tensions with Beijing

SEOUL, South Korea — Japan announced Friday that it had seized a Chinese fishing boat and arrested its skipper in waters southwest of the island nation.

The incident itself, while low-key, comes at a time of high tensions between Beijing and Tokyo.

It also comes just five days after conservative Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, after calling a snap election, won the largest number of seats in the Diet’s Lower House in Japanese political history.

The boat, with a crew of 11, was seized Thursday off Nagasaki Prefecture, in Japan’s southwest. Its skipper was arrested after he refused to obey Japanese demands that he stop for an on-board search.

The vessel, taken inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, was described as a high-capacity “tiger net” vessel, fishing for mackerel.

“We will continue to take resolute action in our enforcement activities to prevent and deter illegal fishing operations by foreign vessels,” Tokyo’s leading spokesperson, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara, said Friday.

Per reports, it is the first capture of a Chinese fishing vessel since 2022. In 2025, Japanese fishery authorities seized two boats — one Taiwanese, one South Korean. Thursday’s seizure of the Chinese vessel was the first such by Japanese authorities in 2026.

China operates the world’s largest fishing fleet. It is frequently accused of predatory trawling practices around the region and around the world.

The fleet also backs up the Chinese coast guard and Navy as a centrally directed “maritime militia,” notably over disputed fishing grounds, and in maritime territorial disputes.

So far, China has not responded to Japan’s action.

Last November, Beijing retaliated strongly when Ms. Takaichi, responding to a question in the Diet, said Japan would consider a contingency around Taiwan to be an existential threat to Japan — a situation that would trigger the activation of Tokyo’s Self Defense Forces.

Taiwan lies just 70 miles from the southwestern-most of Japan’s Ryukyu Islands, sites of a rising number of military bases. The Ryukyus dominate key maritime choke points northeast of Taiwan.

Demanding a retraction of her remarks, Beijing, in quick succession, halted the flow of Chinese tourists to Japan, canceled Japanese concerts across China and stopped all Japanese seafood imports.

It subsequently opened a media/information offensive, questioning Tokyo’s legitimacy in governing the strategic Ryukyu Islands.

More recently, Beijing signaled that it would halt the import of “dual use” goods to Japan, though there is some opacity over precisely what goods fall into that category.

Last week, Beijing green-lighted a shipment of rare earths to Japan.

Japanese media speculated that the shipment reflected Beijing’s concerns that, in a counter-reaction against its use of the critical materials as leverage, Japan, the U.S., the European Union and other nations are actively slashing their dependence on Beijing.

Beijing is deeply wary of the newly empowered Ms. Takaichi.

Well-known as a security hawk, her landslide election win on Sunday — her Liberal Democratic Party captured a supermajority of 316 seats in the 465-seat Lower House, up from 198 prior -— grants her wide policy leeway.

On the security front, her administration is expected to overhaul three key strategic documents in April, setting forth her policy aims in the security space.

U.S. President Trump, who appeared to strike up an amicable relationship with Ms. Takaichi during their first meeting last November, endorsed her preelection and congratulated her postelection.

On Monday, the day after her victory, Beijing reacted.

“We hope Japan follows a path of peaceful development instead of repeating the mistakes of militarism,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said, in comments monitored by Japan’s Kyodo News.

That is a reference to Japan’s brutal war against China in the 1930s and ‘40s.

Mr. Lin repeated demands that she retract her remarks on Taiwan, and warned her against visiting Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine, which Seoul and Beijing aver, glorifies Japan’s past militarism.

No sitting Japanese premier has visited Yasukuni since 2013.

China remains determined to “thwart all provocations and reckless moves of anti-China forces,” Mr. Lin continued, making clear that Beijing’s policy “will not change just due to one election.”