The Prime Minister of Japan, Mr Junichiro Koizumi, called for heightened vigilance yesterday after a suspected North Korean spy ship sank when it was fired upon by Japanese patrol boats in the East China Sea.
The Japanese coastguard was searching for about 15 crew members of the boat and had spotted three bodies last night in choppy waters, about 400 km north-west of the Japanese island of Amami Oshima. Two Japanese coastguards were wounded in the fierce exchange of gunfire but their lives were not in danger, a coastguard spokesman said.
The 100-tonne boat sank late on Saturday after taking a direct hit in its hull when it ignored Japanese orders, coupled with warning shots, to stop after fleeing from Japan's exclusive 200-nautical-mile economic zone.
The Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, Mr Shinzo Abe, said he did not rule out the possibility that "the crew deliberately sank the boat by themselves". Mr Koizumi called the suspect boat's activities "bizzare".
"The situation is deplorable in that armed, suspicious boats are infesting waters around our country in this manner," he said at his official residence. "We need to consider countermeasures, in both legal and practical aspects, as there are groups and people which make suspicious moves."
Mr Koizumi added that the exchange of fire was "self-defence" on Japan's part.
China expressed concern over the use of force but confirmed the boat was not Chinese. "China has kept close watch on the incident," a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Ms Zhang Qiyue, said in Beijing.
Mr Shigehiro Sakamoto, of the Japanese coastguard's rescue division, said two of the bodies were recovered but a third went under as it did not have a lifejacket. "There are many pieces of flotsam and we are recovering them for investigations," he said.
He said one of the dead wore a lifejacket with Korean Hangul characters. Mr Sakamoto earlier said that the sunken ship "closely resembled one of the North Korean spy boats we have previously encountered". The search, involving 12 patrol boats and 13 aircraft from the coastguard as well as two destroyers and a patrol plane from the navy, was to continue overnight.
It was the first time in 48 years that Japan's coastguard has directly attacked illegally-operating foreign ships.
In March 1999, Japanese warplanes and destroyers fired warning shots as they chased two suspected North Korean spy boats from Japan's territorial waters toward North Korea's east coast. It was Japan's first naval bombardment since the second World War.
The Chief Cabinet Secretary, Mr Yasuo Fukuda, said Japan might consider salvaging the sunken boat, lying about 90 metres below the surface, to determine its nationality.
The boat was outside Japan's territorial waters but in its exclusive economic zone when it was first spotted by a patrol aircraft on Friday afternoon.
There was no indication what the vessel, which resembled a fishing boat, was doing.