The latest bubbling of tensions between China and Japan over the disputed islands shows no signs of simmering down.

On Monday, in what may have been the strangest protest action yet, Japan's ambassador to China had to sit and watch as an unidentified man ripped the flag off of his car in Beijing.

Then, on Tuesday, the Japanese Coast Guard released footage from an Aug. 15 confrontation with a Chinese boat in which they tried and failed to prevent the first successful landing on the Senkaku islands by activists from Hong Kong since 1996. Administered by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing and Taipei, the Senkakus are referred to as the Diaoyu Islands in mainland China and Tiaoyutai in Taiwan. A seven-minute highlight real of the Japanese footage compiled by the Japan Times shows Japanese Coast Guard boats issuing warnings to, and eventually firing water cannons at, the Hong Kong boat as it approaches the islands. It then cuts to shots of people aboard the Hong Kong boat – the Bao Diao II, or the "Defend the Diaoyu II" -- pulling unidentified objects out of a bucket and hurling them at one of the Japanese boats. From there, the video goes on to show a Japanese boat colliding with the Bao Diao II – "forcing the Chinese vessel to change its course," according to a translation of the Japanese voice over – and concludes with an image, shot from a helicopter, of the Hong Kong boat wedged between two Japanese Coast Guard boats, apparently under Japanese control. Continue reading on China Real Time.

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