Japan dispatches fighters after China bomber flight near islands
Japan defence minister Itsunori Onodera describes a flight by two Chinese bombers between southern Japanese islands as unusual
Tokyo: Japan defence minister Itsunori Onodera described a flight by two Chinese bombers between southern Japanese islands as unusual, two days before the anniversary of the purchase of islands disputed with China.
Japan dispatched fighter planes when the Chinese H-6 bombers flew between the main southern island of Okinawa and Miyakojima about 280km further southwest on Sunday, without entering Japanese airspace, the defence ministry said in a statement on its website. China said the flight was legal and that it would continue such manoeuvres.
Japanese and Chinese ships and planes have been tailing one another around small, uninhabited East China Sea islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China since the Japanese government bought three of them from a private owner on 11 September 2012.
Onodera told reporters in Tokyo the flight was out of the ordinary and that Japan must deal carefully with the anniversary of the island purchase, according to Fumio Tokubuchi of the defence ministry’s public affairs division.
The ministry said in a separate statement on its website that two Chinese warships were also seen 100km northeast of Miyakojima at 2am on Monday, heading from the Pacific to the East China Sea. An unmanned aircraft of unknown origin flew near the disputed East China Sea islands earlier on Monday without violating Japanese airspace, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said. He called it an unusual incident.
‘Routine’ operation
Chinese naval aircraft recently went to the western Pacific for training in a routine operation, China’s defence ministry said in a statement on its website on Monday. The move wasn’t targeted at any country and was in line with international law, the ministry said.
The dispute over the islands sparked violent demonstrations in China last year, damaging Japanese businesses and trade ties between Asia’s two largest economies. Top-level diplomatic meetings petered out and no formal bilateral summit has been held for more than a year. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke briefly during the Group of 20 summit in Russia last week.
A Chinese military patrol aircraft followed a similar flightpath in July, also spurring Japan to dispatch fighters. In December a Chinese plane entered Japanese-controlled airspace over the disputed islands, prompting Japan to send eight F-15 fighter jets into the area and to lodge what it called an extremely severe protest with China. Bloomberg
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