With tensions over the Senkaku Islands showing no signs of subsiding, Beijing appears determined to keep sending vessels into the waters near the Japan-administered chain to stake its claim to the area.
Just as Japanese ships patrol waters around the uninhabited islets in the East China Sea, China sends vessels into the area in what Chinese scholars say is a countermeasure against Japan's nationalization of the chain last September.
Despite Japan's protests against the territorial intrusions, "it would be impossible for China to unilaterally withdraw ships from there," Li Wei, director of the Institute of Japanese Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, said in a recent interview.