CHINA TOPIX

11/22/2024 12:11:36 pm

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Chinese War Planes Fly Within Meters of Japanese Aircrafts

Chinese aircrafts carrying missiles flew near Japanese military planes conducting monitoring and surveillance over naval drills by China and Russia north of East China Sea on May 24.

While the Japanese OP-3C surveillance and YS-11EB electronic intelligence aircrafts were over the disputed islands in East China Sea, Chinese SU-27 fighter planes came close to within 50 meters and 30 meters of the Japanese planes, respectively.

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"This is a close encounter that is outright over the top," the Japanese Defense Ministry said, Sunday.

Japan accused China of being "over the top" in its defense of disputed territories, Reuters reports.

Itsunori Onodera, Minister of Defense told reporters of TV Asahi that planes coming within those distances to other planes pose a risk that could lead to accidents, the Global Post reports.

This is a bold move for China as this was the first time their war planes had come that close to Japanese self-defense force.

Following this incident, Japan immediately communicated with China and diplomatically explained their concerns. However, no details were mentioned on China's response.

The subject of the disputed tensions in the East China Sea is the Senkaku islands as it is known in Japan, or Diayu in Chinese.

China has recently been increasing its presence over disputed territories over the East and South China Seas, causing tensions to rise between the former and its neighboring Southeast Asian countries.

Recently, anti-Chinese riots have sparked in Vietnam, causing a number of casualties brought about by China's deployment of a deep sea oil drilling rig in a portion of the South China Sea, which is also being claimed by Vietnam.

In the Philippines, disputes over maritime reefs in South China Sea have escalated as well. The country had filed a diplomatic protest against China's reclamation of the reef when Philippine surveillance aircrafts captured evidence of a large-scale construction in the disputed reef. China had denounced the Philippines' allegations as it asserted that the reef is part of Chinese territory.

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