BEIJING/TOKYO: China’s coast guard confronted Japanese lawmakers in waters claimed by both countries in the East China Sea, China’s embassy in Tokyo and Japanese media said on Sunday, the latest in a series of maritime disputes involving China and its neighbors.

Chinese vessels took unspecified law enforcement measures, the embassy said in a statement, adding that it had lodged solemn representations for what it called “infringement and provocation” by Japan near tiny, uninhabited islands that Beijing calls the Diaoyu and Tokyo calls the Senkaku.

The Japanese group, including former Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, was on an inspection mission organized by the city of Ishigaki in Okinawa prefecture, according to the Chinese Embassy and Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

Japan and China have repeatedly faced off around the Japan-administered islands. China also has escalating run-ins with the Philippine navy in disputed areas of the South China Sea, where Beijing’s expansive maritime claims conflict with those of a number of Southeast Asia nations.

Inada’s group spent three hours near the islands on Saturday, using drones to observe the area, and the Japanese coast guard vessel sought to fend off the Chinese coast guard, NHK said.

“The government and the public are aware of the severe security situation,” said Inada, a senior official of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, according to NHK. “The Senkaku are our sovereign territory and we need to go ashore for research.”

It was the first such inspection trip to the area involving a member of Japan’s parliament since 2013, NHK reported.

Officials of Japan’s foreign ministry were not immediately available for comment outside of working hours.

China strongly urged Japan to abide by what it called a consensus reached between the two countries, stop political provocations, on-site incidents and hyping up public opinion, the embassy said.

It asked Japan to “return to the right track of properly managing contradictions and differences through dialogue and consultation, so as to avoid further escalation of the situation.”

WASHINGTON: The White House insisted on Sunday that pro-Palestinian protests that have rocked US universities in recent weeks must remain peaceful, after police arrested around 275 people on four separate campuses over the weekend.

“We certainly respect the right of peaceful protests,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told ABC’s “This Week.”

But, he added: “We condemn the anti-Semitism language that we’ve heard of late and certainly condemn all the hate speech and the threats of violence out there.”

The demonstrations began at Columbia University in New York, but they have since spread rapidly across the country.

While peace has prevailed on many campuses, the number of protesters detained — at times by police in riot gear using chemical irritants and tasers — is rising fast.

They include 100 at Northeastern University in Boston, 80 at Washington University in St. Louis, 72 at Arizona State University, and 23 at Indiana University.

Among those arrested at Washington University was Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who faulted police for aggressive tactics she said provoked the sort of trouble they are meant to quell.

“This is about freedom of speech ... on a very critical issue,” she told CNN shortly before her arrest on Saturday. 

“And there they are, sending in the police and creating a riot.”

College administrators have struggled to find the best response, caught between the need to respect free-speech rights and the imperative of containing inflammatory and sometimes violently anti-Semitic calls by protesters.

At the University o Southern California, school officials late on Saturday closed the main campus to the public after pro-Palestinian groups again set up an encampment that had been cleared earlier, the school announced on X.

With final exams coming in the next few weeks, some campuses — including the Humboldt campus of California State Polytechnic University, have closed and instructed students to complete their classes online.

The activists behind the campus protests — not all of them students — are calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas and want colleges to sever ties with Israel.