Japan and China are accusing one another of violating the airspace across the Japanese-controlled East China Sea islands that Beijing additionally claims.
Japan’s Foreign Ministry issued an announcement saying that it has protested to Beijing after a Chinese language helicopter that took off from considered one of China’s 4 coast guard boats had entered Japan’s territorial waters across the Senkaku island, violating the Japanese airspace round them for about quarter-hour on Saturday.
In response to the airspace intrusion, Japan’s Self-Protection Drive scrambled fighter jets, the Protection Ministry stated.
China routinely sends coast guard vessels and plane into waters and airspace surrounding the islands, which China calls the Diaoyu, to harass Japanese vessels within the space and pressure Japan to scramble jets in response.
The most recent territorial flap comes as Japan and China had been showing to have heat ties as each international locations search to mitigate damages from the U.S. tariff conflict.
The Japanese Overseas Ministry stated it lodged a “very extreme protest” by means of the Chinese language embassy in Japan, claiming that China Coast Guard actions infringed Japan’s sovereignty and urging the Chinese language authorities to make sure preventive measures.
China additionally stated in an announcement that it took the same step and protested to Japan over a Japanese civilian plane violating its airspace across the islands, saying it was “strongly dissatisfied” about Japanese violation of China’s sovereignty.
Japanese officers are investigating a doable connection between the Chinese language coast guard helicopter’s airspace intrusion and the small Japanese civilian plane flying within the space across the similar time.
Saturday’s intrusion was the primary by China since a Chinese language reconnaissance plane violated the Japanese airspace off the southern prefecture of Nagasaki. Chinese language plane have additionally violated the Japanese airspace across the Senkaku twice up to now.
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Related Press author Huizhong Wu in Taipei contributed to this report.
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