China Coast Guard Lawfully Expels Japanese Vessel That Illegally Entered China's Territorial Sea Around Chiwei Yu

On July 7, China Coast Guard vessels intercepted and expelled the Japanese fishing vessel Zuihomaru after it entered waters around Chiwei Yu (one of the Senkaku/Diaoyu affiliated islands), with spokesperson Jiang Lüe framing the action as lawful rights-protection enforcement. The incident documents the CCG's continued use of civilian fishing vessel incursions as enforcement triggers in the Diaoyu/Senkaku zone, a pattern that extends Chinese administrative presence claims through reactive law enforcement rather than unilateral assertion. The public statement's explicit warning to Tokyo and reaffirmation of ongoing 维权执法 operations raises the question of whether this marks an uptick in CCG assertiveness around the affiliated islands specifically, which have seen less frequent incident reporting than the main Diaoyu island chain.