Japan is considering deporting 14 Chinese activists arrested for landing without authorization on disputed islands in the East China Sea, as harsh criticisms and repeated demands for their release erupted Thursday in China.

Taiwan has asked Japan to release a group of Hong Kong activists recently detained for landing on the disputed Tiaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Thursday.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Wednesday made a fresh demand that Japan take responsibility for wartime sex slavery amid an escalating territorial dispute between the two countries.

Japanese police made nine more arrests after pro-China activists landed on a disputed island in the East China Sea on Wednesday, the coast guard said.

The United States on Tuesday warned against any attempt to “divide and conquer” in the tense South China Sea, and voiced hope that Beijing and Southeast Asian nations would reach an accord this year.

A flare-up in tensions between South Korea and Japan marks at least a temporary setback for the United States, which has sought to boost cooperation between its allies as part of its focus on Asia.

Japan and South Korea may not hold an expected summit on the sidelines of the annual APEC gathering in Russia next month as Tokyo mulls its response in an escalating territorial dispute with Seoul.

Japan and North Korea will this month hold their first face-to-face talks in four years, Tokyo said Tuesday, in one of the most significant diplomatic forays for Kim Jong Un since he became leader last year.

A group of contested islands in the Sea of Japan, which is called the East Sea in South Korea, are known as Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea.

South Korea's ruling party hit back at Japan on Sunday in a bitter row over disputed islands, saying any move by Tokyo to take the issue to an international court would be “imprudent.”