The incident has sparked a diplomatic row between the Asian powers, with China calling off planned talks over contested oil and gas fields in the East China Sea and summoning Tokyo's ambassador four times to protest.

Japan's top government spokesman Yoshito Sengoku said questioning of the crew had been completed, meaning there was no reason to keep them in Japan, and that prosecutors had also finished collecting evidence from the ship.

Just before noon (0300 GMT) the Chinese fishermen left the airport on Japan's far-southern Ishigaki island on a chartered flight, Kyodo News agency reported.

Another skipper was flying over from China to return the fishing boat to its home port, added Sengoku, Japan's chief cabinet secretary.

The fishing boat's captain, 41-year-old Zhan Qixiong, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of obstructing officers on duty, a charge that carries up to three years' prison, and a court has since approved his continued detention.

"We will handle this as a criminal case based on Japanese domestic law," Sengoku told a regular press briefing.

Tokyo suspects the trawler captain deliberately rammed two Japanese patrol vessels last Tuesday near a disputed island chain between Japan's Okinawa island and Taiwan, an archipelago called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

Four Japanese patrol boats later pursued and seized the Chinese trawler.

The uninhabited islands are claimed by Tokyo, Beijing and Taipei and are a frequent focus of regional tensions.

The row has cast a cloud over what had been a steady improvement in relations between the traditional East Asian rivals in recent years, as their economic relationship has deepened.

The dispute escalated Saturday when a Chinese vessel confronted two Japanese survey ships at sea, and Beijing called off talks with Tokyo set for later this month over their competing maritime claims in the area.

The Chinese foreign ministry has said any evidence collected by Japan on the collision would be "illegal, invalid and in vain", and in the early hours of Sunday summoned Japan's ambassador Uichiro Niwa for a fourth time.

Sengoku reiterated Japan's position that there is no territorial dispute over the islands and added that "it was regrettable that China summoned the ambassador at such hours. But we are handling this issue calmly."

"We believe the way the coastguard and investigative authorities handled the illegal operation of the fishing boat was nothing but appropriate."

He added that "we are puzzled by China's announcement to call off the talks on joint development of gas fields due to this issue."

The government spokesman also voiced hope that tensions would calm, telling reporters: "I expect that, once the boat and the 14 crew return, we'll see more development."

earlier related report
China stops talks over Diaoyu Islands
Beijing (UPI) Sep 13, 2010 - China has put on hold territorial and resources talks over the disputed Diaoyu Islands until Japan releases the captain of a detained Chinese trawler.

The 14 crew members of the fishing boat were flown home on the weekend from the Japanese island Ishigaki, near Okinawa Island, where they were held along with the captain after last week's collision with two Japanese coast guard vessels in waters near the islands in the East China Sea.

Chinese foreign ministry officials also said they oppose the ongoing investigation by Japanese authorities concerning the incident.

No injuries were reported in the collision but minor damages were done to the ships, the Japanese coast guard said at the time of the incident.

On the weekend, the boat was towed to the area where the incident happened to re-enact the collision as part of the investigation.

But Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the investigation is "illegal, invalid and in vain" and could raise tensions between the two countries.

"Japan will reap as it has sown, if it continues to act recklessly," Jiang said.

Jiang demanded that Japan immediately return the captain, who could face criminal charges, Japanese authorities said. The investigation is trying to establish whether the captain deliberately rammed the coast guard vessels in an attempt to flee the area.

Japanese authorities said they can hold Capt. Zhan Qixiong, 41, until next Sunday, after which they must lay formal charges or let him go. The vessel will be released to a substitute Chinese crew, who will sail it to China.

The Diaoyu Islands -- known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan -- are claimed by both China and Japan, as well as Taiwan.

Japan controls the 2.7 square miles of islands that lie 106 miles north of Japan's Ishigaki Island and 200 miles from the Chinese mainland. They are also 116 miles northeast of Keelung city on northern Taiwan.

Disputes over who owns the five islands and three rocky outcrops are not new and predate the second world war. At the end of the war in 1945 they were under U.S. jurisdiction as part of the captured island of Okinawa. But they have been under Japanese jurisdiction since 1972 when Okinawa was returned to Japan.

The issue of ownership rose up the diplomatic priority level after a 1969 report by the U.N. Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East suggested the possibility of large reserves of oil and natural gas in the vicinity of the archipelago.

Since then, the islands have had periodic incursions by Chinese and Taiwanese fishing boats.

They also have become the focus for political activists.

In 2004 Japanese police arrested seven Chinese activists after they had been on the islands for about 10 hours. A month later a member of a Japanese right-wing group rammed a bus into the Chinese consulate in Osaka, Japan, to protest China's claims to the islands.

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