Japan and Australia urged calm on Sunday after Chinese military aircraft locked radar on Japanese fighter jets, a month after the Japanese leader’s recent remarks on Taiwan that stirred tensions between Tokyo and Beijing.
Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said Japan formally protested the incident, calling it “an extremely regrettable” act and “a dangerous” one that “exceeded the scope necessary for safe aircraft operations.”
“We have lodged a strong protest with the Chinese side and demanded strict preventive measures,” Koizumi said.
Japan’s Defense Ministry said China’s military aircraft J-15 took off from the Chinese carrier Liaoning near the southern island of Okinawa on Saturday and “intermittently” latched its radar on Japanese F-15 fighter jets on two occasions Saturday, for about three minutes in the late afternoon and for about 30 minutes in the evening. It was not made clear whether the radar lock incident involved the same Chinese J-15 both times.
Japanese fighter jets that had been scrambled to pursue Chinese jets that were conducting aircraft takeoff and landing exercises in the Pacific. They were pursuing the Chinese aircraft at a safe distance and did not take actions that could be interpreted as provocation, Kyodo News agency said, quoting defense officials, when the radar lock happened. There was no breach of Japanese airspace, and no injury or damage was reported from the incident.
Senior Colonel Wang Xuemeng, spokesperson for the Chinese navy, defended China’s flight training near the Miyako island Saturday, saying Beijing announced the exercises beforehand and accused Japanese aircraft of “harassment.”
Japan and Australia, whose defense ministers held their scheduled talks in Tokyo on Sunday, expressed worry over the development.
“We are deeply concerned by the actions of China in the last 24 hours,” Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles told a joint news conference Sunday after holding talks with Koizumi. “We expect those interactions to be safe and professional.”
Australia does “not want to see any change to the status quo across the Taiwan Straits,” Marles said, adding that China is his country’s largest trade partner and he wants to have productive relations with Beijing.
“We continue to advocate to China about these issues again, in a very calm, sensible and moderate way,” he said.
Japan and Australia, during Sunday talks, agreed to bolster military ties to lead the region’s multilateral defense cooperation. The two ministers agreed to form a comprehensive “framework for strategic defense coordination” and discuss further details.