Japan lodged a protest with China after one of its marine survey ships entered Japanese waters on Saturday, the second attack on its territory by the Chinese military in less than a week.
China’s increased military activity near Japan and around Taiwan in recent years has raised concerns in Tokyo. Japan has responded with a defense buildup that it says aims to prevent Beijing from using military force to push territorial claims in the region.
The ship was detected off the coast of Kagoshima Prefecture, in southwestern Japan, at about 6 a.m. local time (2100 GMT Friday), and left within two hours, the country’s defense ministry said.
Tokyo registered its “strong concern and protest over this incident” with Chinese embassy officials, the foreign ministry said in a statement that also referred to the first airspace intrusion by Chinese military aircraft on Monday.
Tokyo told Chinese diplomats earlier this week that the violation of its airspace on Monday was “unacceptable.”
Calls to the Chinese embassy in Tokyo were not answered when Reuters called outside regular business hours.
Saturday’s incident was the 10th time in the past year that a Chinese naval survey ship has passed through Japanese territorial waters, and the 13th time that submarines and other intelligence-gathering vessels have been involved, according to national broadcaster NHK.
