Japan voiced renewed concern yesterday over China’s growing military power, a day after two Chinese naval planes made a close approach to a disputed island chain in the East China Sea.
Top government spokesman Yukio Edano said Japan scrambled fighter-jets on Wednesday to chase off the Chinese planes flying about 55km from the Senkaku Islands, known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan.
According to Japanese media reports citing unnamed officials, it was the closest approach yet by Chinese military aircraft to the islands.
However, the Chinese aircraft — identified by Kyodo News as Y-8 intelligence and marine patrol planes — did not enter Japanese territory and flew off once they were confronted.
“We regard the modernization of China’s military power and its growing and intense activities as concerns,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano said. “Our country will continue to pay close attention to moves by China’s military.”
He said that Japan had no plans to lodge an official complaint over the flights, which he said “did not violate international law.”
China’s increased military activity has sparked a defense rethink in which Japan has said it plans to send more forces to its southern islands and away from Cold War-era locations in the north near Russia.
Japan’s Self-Defense Force dispatched its fighters 48 times in response to close flights by Chinese military aircraft between April and December last year, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing