Activist boat sets sail for disputed islands from HK

HONG KONG, Oct 22 (Reuters) A trawler carrying 26 activists left Hong Kong today bound for a cluster of disputed Japan-held islands in the East China Sea.

Gathering on the deck before setting off, the protesters from Hong Kong, the US and Canada and elsewhere, waved colourful banners and shouted slogans into loudhailers denouncing Japan's wartime aggression and claiming Chinese sovereignty over the islands.

''This is a peaceful protest. We warn the (Japanese) not to use excessive force because the world will be watching,'' said David Ko, a trip organiser and Chairman of the Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu islands.

The islands, called Diaoyutai by the Chinese and the Senkakus in Japan, are a cluster of eight small, barren islets in fishing rich waters in the East China sea, 170 kms northeast of Taiwan and 410 kms west of Japan's Okinawa. The islets are claimed by China, Taiwan and Japan.

Japanese authorities have in the past blocked such protest vessels from approaching the uninhabited islands, at times leading to clashes.

The fishing trawler would likely rendezvous in Taiwan with two other ships before arriving at the islands on Wednesday, Ko added.

The protest voyage comes at a time of rapprochement between Asia's two powerful neighbours after a ground breaking visit by Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Beijing on October 8th.

But another organiser, Democratic Party Vice-Chairman Albert Ho, said it was immaterial whether this trip would spark a diplomatic storm like one in 2004, when Chinese protesters were arrested by Japan after landing on the islets.

''We see no difference between the present Prime Minister and the former Prime Minister,'' he said, saying Japan still hadn't fully atoned for its wartime aggression.

The fishing trawler carried a small speedboat and diving equipment, Ho said, which activists might use to dodge Japanese ships in a final dash to storm the islands, but only, he said, if it was ''absolutely safe'' to do so.

The expedition commemorates the 10th anniversary of the death of Hong Kong activist, David Chan, who drowned during a bid to reach the islands in September 1996, outraging many Chinese, who hailed him as a ''patriotic martyr''.

Whilst the rocky islands could prove economically valuable given possible oil deposits, the dispute over sovereignty is also bound up in complicated nationalistic and historic tensions.

The Chinese public is highly sensitive to the communist government's willingness to stand up to Japan over the islands, given Tokyo's wartime aggression.

But both governments have been careful to distance themselves from the dispute, which has largely been played out by independent activists, so as not to jeopardise bilateral relations at large.

Reuters DKA GC1629