Japan has indicted the Chinese fishing trawler captain who sparked an international incident in 2010 when he rammed two Japanese naval craft near a disputed island chain in the East China Sea.

The formal indictment, announced Thursday, came after an independent inquest panel overturned a decision by prosecutors to drop charges against the captain .

The move to drop charges weeks after the September 2010 collision sparked accusations by some Japanese that Tokyo bowed to Chinese pressure in the long-running dispute over the uninhabited islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyou in China.

Analysts have voiced doubt that the captain, who returned to China weeks after the incident, will ever be brought to trial in Japan.