China rejects US' offer to host trilateral talks with Japan over Diaoyu Islands

Beijing, Nov 3 (ANI): Beijing has rejected America's offer to host trilateral talks with China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands.

According to China Daily, China reiterated its sovereignty over the islands and made it clear it is a bilateral issue between Beijing and Tokyo.

"The territorial dispute between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands is the business of the two nations only," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement published on the ministry's website.

"It is absolutely wrong for the United States to repeatedly claim the Diaoyu Islands fall within the scope of the US-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security," Ma added, reiterating that the Diaoyu Islands and adjacent islets are an inalienable part of China's territory.

Ma had made the remarks after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi about Washington's interest in hosting trilateral talks over the issue, last week in Hanoi.

"The offer that I made, that the US would be willing to host a trilateral with both Japan and China if that would facilitate dialogue, stands and it is not only about one issue," Clinton had said earlier.

Relations between Beijing and Tokyo have been under intense strain since collisions between two Japan Coast Guard patrol boats and a Chinese trawler on Sept 7 in waters off the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.

Beijing suspended all high-level contacts with Tokyo after Japan illegally detained the Chinese trawler's captain. (ANI)