Japan’s Defense Ministry announced on Monday that a Chinese military plane violated Japanese airspace for the first time, marking a significant escalation in the ongoing tensions between the two nations. The incident involved a Y-9 intelligence aircraft, which flew over waters near the Danjo Islands in the East China Sea for about two minutes at 11:29 a.m., prompting Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force to scramble fighter jets in response.
In reaction to the airspace violation, Vice Foreign Minister Masataka Okano summoned Chinese Chargé d’Affaires Shi Yong to lodge an “extremely serious protest” and demanded that such incursions never happen again, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
While this marks the first confirmed airspace violation by a Chinese military aircraft, Japan has previously reported similar incidents involving Chinese aircraft. In 2012, a Chinese marine surveillance plane entered Japanese airspace near the disputed Senkaku Islands, followed by a drone in 2017 that had taken off from a China Coast Guard vessel. The Senkaku Islands, administered by Japan but claimed by China, have been a longstanding point of contention between the two countries, with repeated incursions by Chinese coast guard vessels into Japanese territorial waters around the uninhabited islets.