Japan denounces the entry of a Chinese military ship into the country’s southern waters

Aug. 31 (EUROPA PRESS) –

Japan’s Defense Ministry has denounced a brief incursion by a Chinese military ship into its waters near Kagoshima prefecture in the south of the country, during the early hours of Saturday, Friday night in mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands, and less than a week after the bilateral crisis sparked by the entry of a Chinese reconnaissance plane into Japanese airspace.

The ship’s initial approach to Japanese waters was detected shortly before 5:00 a.m. local time (10:00 p.m. Friday in mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands). An hour later, the ship, a reconnaissance model, ended up entering Japanese waters where it remained for almost two hours.

At around 7:53 a.m. local time, the Chinese ship left Japanese waters and headed south, ending the 10th incursion by a Chinese military reconnaissance ship into Japanese waters since September last year, according to a tally kept by Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

The Chinese ship’s entry would not have had much significance had it not been for the unauthorized incursion of a Chinese reconnaissance aircraft on August 26, when the aircraft entered Japanese airspace over the waters of the Danjo Islands.

In a statement issued on Saturday, the Japanese Ministry of Defense denounced that “China has increased military activity around Japan in recent years and these navigations within territorial waters seem to be part of this increase,” while the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has submitted a formal protest to the Chinese diplomatic mission in the country in this regard.