<span style="color: #222222;">Japan will launch a special police unit equipped with submachine guns and helicopters to patrol disputed isles in the East China Sea. The National Police Agency said it had put in a budget request for an additional 159 officers to head off illegal landings on remote islands by armed groups. The deployment near the tiny islands could take place early next year, public broadcaster NHK reported today. NHK said it was the first time police had stepped up patrols near the disputed islands.<br />''<br />''The uninhabited islets are at the centre of a festering row between Tokyo and Beijing, which is also involved in a widening dispute with several Southeast Asian countries over islands in the South China Sea. The Japanese Government has long complained about China's routine dispatch of coastguard ships to waters surrounding the islands. Relations between Japan and China deteriorated in 2012 when Tokyo nationalized some of the islets.</span><br />