Enlarge By Zhang Guojun, AP Chinese boat captain Zhan Qixiong, center, arrives at his home in Ganghu village, southeast China on Monday. BEIJING  A two-week standoff between Japan and China over a boat collision shows the communist state is adopting a more aggressive stance against rivals and U.S. allies in Asia and there may be more tension to come, experts say. "We've just watched the Chinese attempt to manage a dispute ... and they showed they would ratchet up the pressure and bully their way through a problem," said Sheila Smith, senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council for Foreign Relations, in Washington. "That doesn't set a good precedent for anyone that has to work through a problem with China." The two countries toned down the rhetoric Tuesday, but both said it was up to the other to take steps to repair relations damaged by the detention of a fishing captain and a verbal fight over disputed islands. China's Foreign Ministry said Tokyo had to make the first move to put diplomatic ties back on track after nearly three weeks of bitterness since Japan detained the fishing captain after his boat and two Japanese patrol boats collided near islands in the East China Sea. "If Japan values its relationship with China, it should take concrete action to repair ties," spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular news conference. When asked what specific actions Japan had to take, Jiang would not say. Tokyo said Prime Minister Naoto Kan had no plans to meet with his Chinese counterpart at an Asian-European summit in Brussels on Oct. 4-5. Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara said Tokyo is "not taking any action" to arrange talks for the two leaders. "My impression is that it would be difficult for such talks to be arranged," he said. The collision in question happened near a chain of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea called Senkaku that Japan has controlled for decades. The area surrounding the islands contains natural gas. In recent years, China has become more vocal that the islands 120 miles east of Taiwan are its property. It is the same claim China makes against Taiwan, a democratic nation and U.S. ally that the People's Republic of China has never governed. Japan patrols the islands and on Sept. 7 took the Chinese fishing boat and its crew into custody after it said the captain rammed Japanese coast guard boats. What followed were daily denunciations and threats against Japan from China to release its citizens. Japan's government responded by releasing the 14-member crew, but Japanese prosecutors held onto the captain pending an investigation. China then stopped shipments of rare metals that Japan depends on for high-tech manufacturing, according to Japan, and detained four Japanese citizens in China for allegedly videotaping military installations. Numerous small protests against Japan were held across China. Beijing's response stunned Japan and even surprised its own nationalist activists. On Saturday, Japan acceded to China and released the captain, a move the U.S. State Department dubbed "mature." China responded by treating the captain as a hero and demanding an apology from Japan, which it has thus far refused to give. "I was astonished and pleased by the Chinese government's strong and quick response," said Tong Zeng, chairman of the China Federation for Defending the Diaoyu Islands. "I don't believe China acted like a bully, we have reason and evidence for our actions, and were upholding international law. "The Diaoyu Islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times," said Tong, using China's name for the islands. "Whenever any Chinese person lands there they do so legally." For Beijing retiree Li Shen, the outcome vindicated China's tough line. "The Chinese people have really stood up, we are not the 'sick man of Asia' any more," said Li, 67, while visiting a museum commemorating China's fight against the Japanese during World War II. "China's new strength will help guarantee peace in the region and the world," he said. China has become increasingly assertive in the region as its navy seeks to enforce claims in disputed waters. In April, Chinese ships were spotted in international waters off Okinawa, and in another incident that month, a Chinese helicopter also came within 300 feet of a Japanese military monitoring vessel in the vicinity of a Chinese naval exercise. "This time China's stand was very effective. This is shock and awe for those Southeast Asian nations that have territorial disputes with China," said Zhou Yongsheng, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing. Anger at Japan for its brutal wartime occupation of China also explains the tough standpoint, he said. "The Philippine government often detains Chinese fishermen, but the Chinese government has not resolved those problems so strongly," he said. Several Asian nations have unresolved territorial disputes with their giant neighbor. Often the disputes involve energy. The islands that Capt. Zhan Qixiong's boat was fishing near are potentially rich in oil and gas, according to preliminary surveys. Although China's retaliatory actions appeared to have won the day, "in the longer run, the pugnacious Chinese response will hurt them across the region, even as it bolsters the Chinese Communist Party within China," said Kent Calder, director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at SAIS (School of Advanced International Studies), Johns Hopkins University in Washington, who is currently in Tokyo. In Japan, where Calder reports that taxi drivers are angry at their government's "weak-kneed response," China's image "had been slowly improving since the Koizumi years, but this is a definite setback," he said. China "really overplayed its hand," agreed Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University's Japan campus. "It's a revealing moment, and the rest of Asia is looking on and saying 'uh-oh.' " Beijing's " 'soft-power diplomacy' — that a rising China is not a threatening China — has all gone up in smoke," he said. Washington will be taking note, Kingston said. "China is the rising power and the USA the status quo hegemony; they have to find out how America can accommodate China's growing aspirations," he said. "The rest of Asia is really eager to have the U.S. step up its engagement here to bolster the infrastructure of multilateral institutions." The Chinese government's attitude and approach will be harder and less compromising than before, warned Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at People's University in Beijing. This approach is partly driven by a Chinese public who criticized the traditional, more compromising approach as "not compatible with people's impression that China is rising," Shi said. At the war museum in Beijing, which documents Japan's brutal occupation of much of China from 1931 to 1945, Jimmy Jia, a worker in an international trading firm, said he was angered by Japan's detention of a Chinese citizen. But the current spat would not stop him from a planned vacation in Japan next year. "It's a very complicated relationship, but the two countries must be peaceful and tolerant toward each other," he said. Contributing: Sunny Yang, The Associated Press Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. 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