Japan shrine visits, isles row stir East Asia tensions

TOKYO (Reuters) - Tensions flared between Japan and its Asian neighbours after a group of Japanese lawmakers visited a shrine seen by China and South Korea as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, and Chinese patrol vessels played cat-and-mouse with a flotilla of Japanese nationalists near disputed islands in the East China Sea.

Beijing protested over the voyage by 10 boats carrying about 80 Japanese activists into waters near the islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.