Japan delays loans to China

Japan is to postpone giving a major loan to China because of concerns over suspected Chinese spy ships sailing near Japanese waters.

The country's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has decided to suspend approval for the one-hundred-and-sixty million dollar low interest loan until Foreign Minister Yohei Kono returns from a visit to Beijing next week.

An LDP official said the party was increasingly concerned that the Chinese were stepping up their intelligence-gathering activities around Japanese territorial waters, sometimes under the guise of conducting oceanic surveys. A government spokesman said the foreign minister would raise the issue of the loan, earmarked for a railway project in Beijing and an airport expansion plan in central China, during his visit.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service