China frees 3 of 4 detained Japanese, 3 to return home Thurs.+

BEIJING/TOKYO, Sept. 30 Kyodo -
China on Thursday released three of the four Japanese construction company
employees who had been detained in the northern province of Hebei since Sept.
20 for allegedly entering a military zone without permission and videotaping
facilities there.
The three Fujita Corp. employees were released in the morning ''after admitting
to have violated Chinese law and showing regret for their mistake,'' the
official Xinhua News Agency reported, adding that the fourth is still being
held for investigation.
Fujita confirmed the release of Yoshiro Sasaki, Hiroki Hashimoto and Junichi
Iguchi along with a Chinese employee of its local unit who visited the site,
located on the outskirts of the provincial capital Shijiazhuang, along with the
four Japanese.
It said it hopes to see still-detained Sadamu Takahashi set free ''as soon as
possible.''
A senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official said that a diplomat at the
Japanese Embassy in Beijing contacted the three over the phone, and that they
are expected to return to Japan later Thursday.
''The (fourth) Japanese national...is still under further investigation,''
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said, without referring to a
potential timing of Takahashi's release.
''I believe relevant authorities will handle this case according to law,''
Jiang told a news conference.
Despite the continued detention of Takahashi, sources close to Japan-China
relations said China is likely to start reversing a hard-line stance toward
Japan and mending bilateral ties, which saw sharp deterioration in the wake of
Japan's arrest of a Chinese fishing boat captain over maritime collisions near
the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea on Sept. 7.
Japanese prosecutors freed the skipper last Saturday.
In Tokyo, Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara said he will seek the early
release of Takahashi following the freeing of his three colleagues.
''I want to seek a quick resolution as one other remains,'' Maehara told a
parliamentary session.
The Fujita employees had visited the area in question to inspect a potential
construction site for a plant that would process chemical weapons abandoned in
China by the Japanese military at the end of World War II.
China strictly controls visitors in military-related areas. While it is not
uncommon for visitors who inadvertently take photos or video to be detained,
they are usually fined and freed the same day.
State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Yutaka Banno told journalists that Japan
''will ask China to ensure the safety of the remaining one, our continued
access to him and a quick settlement of the case from a humanitarian
standpoint.''
Observers suspect the Chinese detention of the four Japanese nationals may have
been part of retaliatory steps Beijing had taken against Japan over its earlier
detention of Chinese ship skipper Zhan Qixiong.
Zhan was arrested and sent to prosecutors on suspicion of deliberately causing
his vessel to collide with a Japanese patrol boat pursuing it near the islets,
administered by Japan but claimed by China and Taiwan.
Japan released the 14 crew members on Sept. 13, but continued to detain Zhan
for further investigations.
The incident caused bilateral relations to deteriorate their lowest level in
years, prompting China to announce a series of countermeasures such as the
suspension of ministerial and higher-level exchanges and postponing scheduled
talks with Japan over an undersea gas bed dispute.
==Kyodo
2010-09-30 23:45:50


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