China blasts ‘PROVOCATIVE’ Japan as tensions boil over in east Asia
CHINA has accused Japan’s air force of almost tipping east Asia into conflict after the country’s jets locked their radars on to Chinese military aircraft.
By TOM BATCHELOR
Express.co.uk
Thu, Oct 27, 2016
Beijing said Tokyo’s jets were acting provocatively and endangering safety after a series of incidents in the skies.
Japan responded by saying military chiefs had been forced to scramble a record number of fighter jets as the risk of full-blown conflict between the two superpowers builds.
Patrol ships and fighter jets from Asia’s two biggest economies have been shadowing each other in the East China Sea for years amid an ongoing dispute over uninhabited islands known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.
Japan’s Air Self-Defence Force revealed it scrambled fighters to monitor Chinese planes 407 times in the six months to the end of September, compared with 231 times in the same period last year.
But China accused Japan of interfering in scheduled training exercises and they were acting in a “dangerous” and “provocative” way.
Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said: “What is more, when aircraft of the Japan Self-Defence Forces encounter Chinese aircraft, their radars light up, they let off infrared jamming projectiles and show other unprofessional, dangerous provocative behaviour.
“This endangers the safety Chinese aircraft and personnel and is the root of the China-Japan maritime and air problem.”
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