Frequent harassment by Chinese and Russian warplanes has disturbed flight security in East Asia and destabilized geopolitics in the western Pacific region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said.
From April to December last year, the Japan Air Self-defense Force scrambled fighter jets 555 times to intercept foreign military planes, mainly from China and Russia, the ministry said in a report.
Most of the intercepts occurred in Japan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) to the southwest.
Photo: Screen grab from a Japanese Ministry of Defense report
Of the 555 launches, 392, or 71 percent, were scrambled to intercept Chinese jets, and 148, or 24 percent, were to stop Russian jets.
The remaining 15 were made in response to aircraft from North Korea, Taiwan and other countries.
Japan’s southwestern ADIZ saw the majority of Chinese plane incursions at 327, or 58.9 percent, followed by the west at 97, the north at 94 and its central air space at 37, the report said.
The frequency of Chinese jet harassment near the Taiwan Strait and Japan’s southwestern ADIZ has decreased flight safety in the region, it said.
The Chinese warplanes included J-15 and J-16 jets, H-6 bombers, Y-9DZ electronic intelligence aircraft and BZK-005 uncrewed aerial vehicles, while Russian planes included Tu-95 bombers, IL-20 surveillance aircraft and IL-38 anti-submarine aircraft, the report said.
While the number of scrambled sorties dropped by 57 compared with the same period in 2022, reports from the US Naval Institute said that the region averages two scrambled launches a day and remains under high alert.
Two Russian-Chinese military exercises in the region involving long-range bombers, landing and take-off exercises on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy Shandong carrier, and North Korean trial launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles are clear signals that Japan is facing severe external threats, the report added.
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