China holding two Japanese men for spying

China's Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday that the country arrested two Japanese men on suspicion of espionage.

The announcement came hours after Japanese media had reported the arrests by Chinese officials. Citing unnamed sources, Japanese public broadcaster NHK, the Asahi newspaper and Kyodo news agency reported that China detained the men separately in May and had held one in the northern Liaoning province and another in the eastern Zhejiang province.

"I'm not going to comment on individual cases," top Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters at a regular press briefing on Wednesday, but he would say that the nation did not spy on its regional rivals: "Our country is not engaged in such activity." He added that Japan "is making every effort concerning the safety of our citizens overseas."

Other officials with the Japanese government declined to comment. Authorities at China's Foreign Ministry also did not immediately respond to inquiries from news agencies.

History of conflict

In 2010, Chinese officials accused four employees of the Japanese construction company Fujita of filming a military site in the northern Hebei province, but released them within a few weeks and sent them home. The group claimed that they had visited the city of Shijiazhuang to prepare a bid for a project to dispose of chemical weapons left in China by invading Japanese forces in the 1930s and had no idea that they had entered a restricted zone.

Those detentions occurred during bitter diplomatic standoff between the countries, sparked by Japan's arrest of a Chinese trawler captain in the ever-contested waters of the East China Sea. Despite extensive trade links between the countries, simmering territorial disputes and Japan's occupation China and use of forced sex and labor during World War II remain sore spots in relations between Asia's two biggest economies. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping have met twice since last November, which has helped thaw relations a bit.

Since taking power in 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping has overseen a tightening of already strict regulations, including setting up a new national security commission and renaming the national security law, which took effect in 1993, the Counterespionage Law. For his part, Abe has pushed for a more militarily robust Japan as China continues to flex its might in high-profile displays.

mkg/sms (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)