China has accused Japan of \u201cdangerous\u201d close-in reconnaissance and \u201cprovocative harassment\u201d during more than 40 days of \u201cfar-sea combat training\u201d by a Chinese Navy aircraft carrier flotilla, according to Chinese state-run TV.<\/p>\n
The Chinese Navy\u2019s Liaoning aircraft carrier flotilla returned to its home port on Monday, after the long-range training saw \u201cJapanese vessels and aircraft repeatedly conducted close-range tracking, surveillance and provocative harassment,\u201d state broadcaster CCTV said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Liaoning carrier group maintained a high state of alert throughout, continuously launching carrier-based fighter aircraft for combat sorties, flexibly adjusting combat formations and responding professionally to Japan\u2019s dangerous actions,\u201d CCTV added.<\/p>\n
Footage released by CCTV showed Maritime Self-Defense Force patrol planes and ships flying and sailing near Chinese vessels and aircraft.<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s Defense Ministry said in a statement the same day that MSDF ships and planes had tracked the Liaoning and two accompanying vessels sailing through the Miyako Strait into the East China Sea on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The ministry said on June 1 that the Liaoning strike group had conducted exercises in the Pacific Ocean east of the Philippines<\/a> in late May but had since been silent on its operations until Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n There was no immediate response from Tokyo over Beijing\u2019s claims of harassment during the training.<\/p>\n Tokyo has been taking a cautious \u2014 if firm \u2014 approach to avoiding any escalation with Beijing<\/a>, after ties plummeted to their lowest point in decades following Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi\u2019s remarks in November that Japan could hypothetically intervene militarily in a Taiwan crisis.<\/p>\n China claims democratic Taiwan as its own and has vowed to bring it under its control, by force if necessary.<\/p>\n During roughly the same period last year, the Defense Ministry made the rare decision to release a map depicting the movements of two Chinese aircraft carriers in western Pacific<\/a> \u2014 an unusual move apparently aimed at drawing attention to Beijing\u2019s naval activities in the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was unclear if the Takaichi administration had chosen not to publicly disclose the carrier group\u2019s recent movements to avoid further inflaming ties.<\/p>\n The Chinese military\u2019s moves in the western Pacific have unnerved Japan, stoking concerns about the possibility of a close encounter triggering an accident that erupts into a broader conflagration.<\/p>\n In December, fighter jets from the Liaoning carrier twice locked their radar on Air Self-Defense Force aircraft<\/a> over international waters southeast of Okinawa Prefecture. Last summer, China also dispatched the Liaoning and another of its aircraft carriers deep into the western Pacific<\/a> and sent its warplanes near Japanese aircraft multiple times \u2014 moves that Tokyo said risked collisions<\/a>.<\/p>\n During the recent Chinese exercise, the carrier group conducted operations in the South China Sea, western Pacific and other air and sea areas, CCTV…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China has accused Japan of \u201cdangerous\u201d close-in reconnaissance and \u201cprovocative harassment\u201d during more than 40 days of \u201cfar-sea…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12069,12,462,360,1468,1180,8,14553,26242,358,2303,488],"class_list":["post-45581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-aircraft-carriers","tag-china","tag-china-japan-relations","tag-defense","tag-defense-ministry","tag-indo-pacific","tag-japan","tag-msdf","tag-pla","tag-sanae-takaichi","tag-sdf","tag-taiwan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}