A Chinese aircraft carrier entered Japan’s contiguous waters for the first time on Wednesday, according to Japan’s Defence Ministry, marking a new escalation in military tensions between the two nations. Accompanied by two destroyers, the carrier navigated between Japan’s southern Yonaguni and Iriomote islands, encroaching on an area extending up to 24 nautical miles from Japan’s coastline, where the country has some control as defined by United Nations guidelines.
Japan’s Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshi Moriya expressed Tokyo’s “serious concerns” to Beijing, calling the incident “utterly unacceptable from the perspective of Japan’s security environment and the region.” He emphasised that Japan would “continue to closely monitor Chinese naval vessels’ activities in the waters around our country and will take all possible measures to gather information and conduct vigilance and surveillance.”
In recent developments, Japan lodged a protest with China last month following the intrusion of a Chinese naval survey vessel into Japanese waters, shortly after an airspace breach. Additionally, a Japanese navy destroyer made a rare foray into China’s territorial waters near Taiwan in July, according to Japanese media.
The uptick in Chinese military activity near Japan and around Taiwan in recent years has heightened concerns in Tokyo, prompting Japan to pursue a defence buildup intended to deter China from leveraging military force to assert its territorial claims in the region.
Earlier on Wednesday, Taiwan’s Defence Ministry reported sighting the same Chinese aircraft carrier group sailing through waters off its east coast towards Yonaguni, Japan’s southernmost island, approximately 110 km (69 miles) east of Taiwan. The ministry indicated that the Chinese ships, led by the Liaoning, the oldest of China’s three aircraft carriers, were observed early in the morning travelling through waters northeast of Taiwan. Taiwan’s forces were dispatched to monitor the situation, although China’s Defence Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Source: Reuters
