A Chinese intelligence-gathering ship sailed between two southwestern Japanese islands Tuesday morning, prompting the United States ally to dispatch a warship to keep tabs on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) vessel, Tokyo said.
Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry via email for comment outside of office hours.
Japan is part of the so-called First Island Chain, a string of island archipelagos that also includes the Philippines and portions of Indonesia that the U.S. considers key to containing Chinese forces in the event of a conflict.
While the Chinese vessel was operating in international waters, its proximity to the strategic Okinawa Prefecture, home to dozens of U.S. military facilities, comes amid heightened tensions between Tokyo and Beijing over a range of issues, including the territorial dispute over the nearby Senkaku Islands, China’s military buildup and threats toward neighboring Taiwan.
The Dongdiao-class electronic surveillance ship, the Tianlangxin, was confirmed to be sailing westward approximately 80 miles off Okinawa Prefecture’s Miyako Island at around 6 a.m., the Japanese defense ministry’s joint staff said.
The ship then reportedly followed a northwesterly course that took it through the Miyako Strait — a strategic chokepoint separating Miyako and Okinawa’s main island — and toward the East China Sea.
In response, the country’s de facto navy, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, sent the Fubuki-class destroyer the Amagiri to gather information on the Chinese vessel.
The Tianlangxin was last reported in waters near Japan on June 10. That day, it transited from the East China Sea to the Philippine Sea via the Osumi Strait, which is situated off Japan’s southernmost main island, Kyushu.
In separate press releases on Tuesday, the Joint Staff reported that an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was twice detected off Taiwan’s east coast.
The previous day, a PLA Air Force Y-9 aircraft was observed flying through the Miyako Strait from the East China Sea, while a presumed Chinese drone was tracked flying south to north off Taiwan’s east coast.
In each of the above cases, Japan scrambled fighters to monitor the foreign aircraft.
Japan is increasingly unsettled by China’s push to supplant the U.S. as the preeminent military power in the region.
Japan’s annual defense white paper, submitted to the Cabinet last week, cited growing concerns over the increasing frequency of PLA Navy deployments to the First Island Chain and beyond.
Chinese warships passing between islands in Okinawa Prefecture, in particular, tripled in number between 2021 and 2024, according to the white paper.
Beijing criticized the document, saying it “peddles the false ‘China threat'” and that China’s national defense policy is “defensive in nature.”
Japan is expected to continue reporting on Chinese military activities near its territory.
Fears over the shifting balance of power in the region have driven Tokyo to bolster ties with the U.S. and other partners in the region and move forward with increasing defense spending to 2 percent of Japan’s GDP by 2027.
