BEIJING — China said Monday that it plans to use unmanned drones to conduct marine surveillance by 2015 as it tries to increase its presence around uninhabited East China Sea islands at the center of a dispute with Japan. While still years away, the planned deployment comes as relations between the sides continue to be roiled by fury in China over the Japanese government's purchase of the islands this month from their private Japanese owners. As part of efforts to contain the fallout, Japan on Monday dispatched a vice foreign minister to meet with his Chinese counterpart for talks on the state of relations between the countries. Li Mousheng, a spokesman for China's State Oceanic Administration, said the decision to deploy drones followed a successful test Sunday. He offered no details on the test, but cited state media reports that said China aims to have drones and monitoring bases in place by 2015. The reports didn't say when the drones would be deployed around the islands, called Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan. China has been aggressively developing unmanned aircraft for both civilian and military purposes, with missions ranging from guiding missile strikes to monitoring grain crops. Taiwan, which has an overlapping claim, has registered a formal protest. On Monday, several dozen Taiwanese fishing boats set out for the islands from the east coast port of Suao in what was being termed an apolitical protest to protect access to traditional fishing grounds. Meanwhile, five anti-Japan demonstrators who turned violent at a protest in Shenzhen surrendered to police, state media said Monday as China began to question whether protests over disputed islands went too far. The five men gave themselves up after police launched a social media campaign targeting demonstrators who damaged property in the southern city, the state news agency Xinhua said, with 350 calls received by Sunday night. There was huge public sympathy for 51-year-old Li Jianli, a Chinese citizen said by domestic media to have been left partially paralyzed after being brutally attacked by a mob for driving a Japanese-made car. The attack in the northern city of Xian, in Shaanxi province, was heavily discussed on China's popular Sina Weibo microblogging site – the country's version of Twitter – where it was ‘re-tweeted' more than 100,000 times and received almost 60,000 comments by Monday morning. “Ignorant. Utterly ignorant. This is not patriotism, this is an ignorant and brutal act. It's illegal, and the criminal should be brought to justice,” said one Weibo poster. “I really don't understand why Chinese are always bullying Chinese. Is this patriotism?” said another. — Agencies
