Beijing: China on Sunday said it is "strongly dissatisfied" with US` veiled warning to Beijing not to challenge Japanese control of disputed islands, as it sent a fresh fleet of surveillance ships to the area at the centre of the bitter territorial row.

Strongly reacting to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton`s comments that the US is opposed to any "unilateral actions that would seek to undermine Japanese administration", Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang said that China is "strongly dissatisfied with and resolutely opposes" the remarks. China expressed strong discontentment on and firmly opposed the comment that the US side made about the Diaoyu Islands, Qin said in a statement here.
China yesterday also sent a fleet of three Chinese marine surveillance ships which continued to patrol territorial waters of the Islands in East China Sea.
"We urged the US side to adopt a responsible attitude in regard to the issue of Diaoyu Islands," Qin said, referring to the comments made by Clinton.
In her media interaction with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington yesterday, Clinton said that the US wants China and Japan to settle the issue peacefully.
"We do not want to see any action taken by anyone that could raise tensions or result in miscalculation that would undermine the peace, security and economic growth in this region," she said, without directly referring to China.
"The comments by the US side are ignorant of facts and indiscriminate of rights and wrongs," Qin was quoted by state-run Xinhua news agency as saying in the statement. The US cannot deny its historical responsibility on the issue of the Diaoyu Islands, Qin said, stating that the US put the islands under the control of Japan after the World War II despite China`s objections.
The Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islets have been the inherent territories of China, Qin said adding that this was an undeniable fact backed up by historical records and international laws.
Qin accused Japan of being the primary source of persistent tension over the Diaoyu Islands.
He said that Japan insisted on carrying out the wrongful action of purchasing some of the islands and continued to adopt escalating moves.
"This is yet another fact that cannot be covered up by any people," he said.
The US has been saying that it has taken a neutral stand on the dispute over the islands called Diaoyu Dai by China and Senkakus by Japan. But the US also asserts that the islands are covered by its defence treaty with Japan.
China has objected to the US stand, saying that it amounted to taking sides.
China scaled up its opposition and pressed ships to patrol the islands since September last year after Japan bought the islands from private parties, which Beijing said amounted to nationalising them ignoring its claims.
Since then the ships of both the countries have been aggressively patrolling the islands while their fighter aircraft scrambled to prevent surveillance planes.
PTI