Japan risks China's wrath over Senkakus Japan's national government has sealed a deal to buy disputed islands in the East China Sea from their private Japanese owner, despite fierce objections from Beijing. China has repeatedly warned Japan not to nationalise three islands in the contested group, which Tokyo calls the Senkaku and Beijing knows as the Diaoyu, hinting at unspecified retaliation. Xinhua, China's state news agency, described the Japanese move as "illegal and invalid," and warned that Tokyo had already "thrown bilateral relations into a scalding pot." "Pushing ahead with a provocative unilateral move serves nothing but to undermine the hard-won China-Japan strategic relationship of mutual benefit," wrote Xinhua on its website. The spat over the Japanese-administered group - which is also claimed by Taiwan - has in recent years become the biggest source of tension in relations between East Asia's two biggest powers. Japan's central government already rents the three Senkaku islands and bans landings on them in order to avoid antagonising Beijing. But this arrangement has been threatened in recent months by efforts by the nationalist governor of Tokyo to buy the islands and build fishing and other facilities on them. Japanese officials say the nationalisation of the islands is needed to avoid escalating tensions over the group, which has been uninhabited for decades but lies in potentially resource-rich seas. Yoshihiko Noda, Japan's prime minister, last week stressed that Japan would continue its "stable and secure" management of the Senkaku islands. But Hu Jintao, China's president, repeated opposition to the purchase during a brief conversation with Mr Noda at a weekend regional summit, Japanese media quoted China's foreign ministry as saying. Osamu Fujimura, Japan's top government spokesman, told a briefing on Monday that a deal had been reached with the island's private owner. He did not say how much the government would pay for the three rocky outcrops, but Japanese media said the purchase would cost the state more than Y2bn. The Senkaku islands have long been considered one of East Asia's most dangerous flashpoints. A clash between a Chinese fishing boat and Japanese coastguard in the area in 2010 disrupted diplomatic and economic exchanges for months. Japan also has territorial disputes with its other nearest neighbours, South Korea and Russia. Tokyo was outraged last month when South Korean president Lee Myung-bak paid a visit to the Dokdo islands, which are controlled by Seoul but contested by Japan, which calls them Takeshima. In a hint of possible progress on Tokyo's dispute with Moscow over another set of disputed islands, Mr Noda plans to visit Russia later this year. Japan's Kyodo news agency said Vladimir Putin, Russian president, had agreed the visit Mr Noda at a regional summit over the weekend in Russia's far eastern city of Vladivostok.