The angry rhetoric between China and Japan over a disputed set of islands ratcheted up this week when China accused Japanese fighter jets of shadowing its own planes in the contested region.

The Chinese Ministry of Defense released a statement on its website that reads, in part, "Several Japanese aircraft entered China's Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea on Wednesday and carried out extensive reconnaissance."

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On Thursday, China's Air Force spokesman Shen Jinke said Chinese planes tracked and monitored foreign military planes.

"The Japanese F-15 aircraft twice attempted to approach Chinese patrol planes that were conducting a routine patrol in the ADIZ, and the Chinese planes took reasonable, proper and restrained measures to cope with the threat in the airspace," Shen said.

Japan has yet to officially comment on the matter, but the country's recently released annual defense whitepaper set a surprisingly hawkish tone identifying China as a growing military threat, a claim that drew scorn from Chinese outlets. The conflict involves three of Asia's most influential economies, and underscores the deepening mistrust all three have for each other.

Moreover, if any nation or force were to put forces on the ground on a territory currently administered by Japan, the move would draw the United States, which shares military treaties with Japan, into the conflict.

To this, US Secretary of State John Kerry pleaded with China not to enforce the ADIZ.

"The United States is deeply concerned about China's announcement that they've established an 'East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone,'" Kerry said in a statement. "We have urged China to exercise caution and restraint, and we are consulting with Japan and other affected parties throughout the region. We remain steadfastly committed to our allies and partners, and hope to see a more collaborative and less confrontational future in the Pacific." 

Known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, the islets, dubbed the Pinnacle Islands on English-language maps, are at the center of one of Asia's longest modern border conflicts that also involves Taiwan.

China's claim goes back to the 14th Century, but Japan assumed control of the archipelago in 1895 after the first Sino-Japanese War. With the defeat of Imperial Japan at the end of WWII, American forces oversaw the territory until 1972, when which Japanese authority was reinstated. It was also during this time when both China and Taiwan reinstated their claims.

While the islands themselves remained uninhabited for many years, the surrounding waters contain rich fishing grounds. In 1969, the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East identified the sea floor around the islands as potentially holding oil reserves. 

China extended an Air Defense Zone (ADIZ) in November of 2013 over much of the East China Sea, including the skies over the Pinnacle Islands, drawing sharp protests from both Japan and the United States. The most recent incident involved Japanese F-15s twice trailing Chinese patrol planes. 

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