DHAKA: China’s state media on Sunday slammed Japan’s move to name islands at the edge of its territorial waters claimed by Beijing as a ‘farce’, saying they already had Chinese names.

Tokyo on Friday named 160 uninhabited islands in the East China Sea which include five in an archipelago known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China over which the two nations have long been at loggerheads.

‘Japan’s naming farce can’t change China’s sovereignty over Diaoyu Islands,’ was the headline of a commentary in China’s state-run news agency Xinhua.

‘Japan may believe that giving names to those islets is a show of its sovereignty, but it has to be reminded that those islets have already got a Chinese name,’ it added, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1654 HRS, AUG 03, 2014