Two Chinese naval vessels sailed between Japan’s southwestern islands this week, Japan’s military said, in a passage that follows training in the Western Pacific.
Two Chinese naval vessels sailed between Japan’s southwestern islands this week, Japan’s military said, in a passage that follows training in the Western Pacific and comes amid heightened tensions between Tokyo and Beijing.
The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force spotted the guided-missile destroyer and frigate south of Hateruma Island around 3 a.m. Wednesday, according to a Joint Staff news release that day. Both ships were moving northwest.
The same vessels were later seen sailing northeast between Yonaguni and Iriomote islands, entering Japan’s contiguous zone and heading toward the East China Sea, the release said. Both islands are part of Okinawa prefecture.
Foreign vessels are allowed to pass through the roughly 35-nautical-mile-wide waterway under international law, though Japan may respond if ships enter its territorial waters, which extend 12 nautical miles from shore.
The same vessels were tracked Sunday sailing northwest between Amami Oshima and Yokoate Island in Kagoshima prefecture. The destroyer JS Akebono, assigned to a Sasebo-based surface squadron, monitored the Chinese vessels during their transit, the Joint Staff said.
China’s defense ministry said the ships were returning from an exercise. The Chinese navy’s Formation 133 was passing through the area after it “completed its training in the Western Pacific … effectively testing its operations capabilities on the far-seas,” spokesman Senior Col. Xu Chenghua said Wednesday in a news release on the ministry’s website.
The movements come as naval activity in nearby waters has increased in recent days.
China’s aircraft carrier Liaoning sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Monday, according to Taiwan’s defense ministry. It was the first such transit since Beijing’s newest carrier, Fujian, made a similar passage in December.
Japan has also stepped up its presence in the area. The guided-missile destroyer JS Ikazuchi transited the Taiwan Strait on April 17, marking the fourth such passage by Japan’s navy since June, according to Japanese media reports.
The move drew criticism from Beijing.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun called the transit a “dangerous plot of some in Japan to militarily intervene in the Taiwan Strait and undermine peace and stability there,” according to a government transcript. China has increasingly used the waterways near Japan’s southwestern islands to travel between the Pacific Ocean and the East China Sea.
In September 2024, the Liaoning became the first Chinese aircraft carrier to pass between Yonaguni and Iriomote.
The transit — along with a separate incursion by a Chinese survey vessel into Japanese territorial waters near Kagoshima — prompted Tokyo to lodge “strong protests” with Beijing.
- Security