Image copyright AP Image caption Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters Japan does its utmost to protect citizens abroad

Two Japanese men are being held in China on accusations of spying, China's foreign ministry has confirmed.

China has not given details, but Japanese media reports said the men had been held since May, one in northern Liaoning province, the other in coastal Zhejiang province.

Speaking at a regular press briefing, Japan's top government spokesman denied Tokyo spies on foreign countries.

"Our country is not engaged in such activity," Yoshihide Suga said.

The chief cabinet secretary also declined to comment on reports about the ages and other personal details of the men.

"I'm not going to comment on individual cases," he said.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei confirmed the detentions, and said China had "notified Japan on the relevant situation".

The reports, which first appeared in the Asahi newspaper (in Japanese), said one suspect was detained close to a military facility and the other near the North Korean border.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption President Xi Jinping has toughened China's stance towards both internal dissent and foreign espionage

Along with a crackdown on corruption and political opposition, Chinese President Xi Jinping has taken a tough line on national security, creating a new national security commission and strengthening a counter-espionage law.

Reports of the Japanese detentions come not long after news emerged that an American woman, Sandy Phan-Gillis, had been held in China since March, also accused of spying.

Mrs Phan-Gillis was accompanying a US trade promotion trip to the country when she was arrested.

In 2010, four Japanese men were detained in the northern province of Hebei for filming in a military area, during preparations for a bid by Japanese company Fujita to dispose of chemical weapons left in China by Japanese troops in the 1930s.

They admitted the filming but denied they knew they were in a restricted area, and were later released.

While those arrests came at a time of escalating tension between the two neighbours, the latest detentions come amid a relative warming of relations, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe meeting President Xi twice since November.