Japan on Monday said that a Chinese military plane had violated its airspace, local media reported that it was the first such move by a Chinese aircraft.
Japan’s defence ministry said an Y-9 surveillance aircraft at 11.29 am on Monday “violated the territorial airspace off the Danjo islands in Nagasaki prefecture” in the East China Sea and lasted two minutes. It prompted Japan to deploy “fighter jets on an emergency basis”, Kyodo news outlet reported.
The latest development could fuel tensions between the two countries following repeated maritime provocations by China in the region, the state media said.
The aircraft circled above waters southeast of the islands multiple times before and after entering Japan’s airspace, eventually heading toward China around 1:15 p.m. Japanese ministry of Defence said that the Japanese Air Self-Defence Force (ASDF) fighters did not use weapons or signal flares.
Japan’s Vice foreign minister Masataka Okano summoned China’s acting ambassador late on Monday to lodge a “extremely serious protest,” and called for measures against a recurrence, the Japanese foreign ministry said in a statement.
As per the NHK, the Japanese public broadcaster, there were previous incursions by non-military aircraft involving a propeller-powered Chinese marine surveillance plane and a small drone that had taken off from a China Coast Guard vessel and went into airspace near the disputed Senkaku islands in 2012 and 2017.
Kyodo news agency cited a Japanese defence Ministry source as saying that China “might be trying to provoke a reaction from Japan,” while a government source said the airplane merely grazed the territorial airspace and possibly strayed off course.
China’s increasing aggressive actions in the region, especially with Taiwan, has been a growing cause of concern for US and its allies.
Japan is part of the Quad alliance with India, Australia and the US, which is seen as a counter to Beijing’s assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Senkaku islands in the East China Sea administered by Japan has been claimed by China and there has been confrontations between Japanese and Chinese vessels. The group of disputed islands, Uotsuri island , Minamikojima and Kitakojima are known as the Diaoyu in china.
Meanwhile, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan is set to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing today.
