A flotilla of Chinese ships, including one armed with a suspected “autocannon,” was spotted on Monday patrolling the waters near the contested Senkaku Islands, Japan’s coast guard said.
The Tokyo-held islets in the East China Sea, which Beijing claims as the Diaoyu group, are the subject of a simmering territorial dispute, one of several flash points in Asia that could drag the United States into a regional conflict.
China’s law enforcement vessels have for years maintained a near-constant presence around the islets in a bid to assert sovereignty over them. As of April 15, Chinese ships had patrolled the Senkakus on 116 consecutive day since mid-December, including on each day this month, Japan coast guard data shows.
On at least three days in April, between two and four ships have entered Tokyo’s declared 12-nautical mile territorial waters around the islands. Japan said its patrol vessels expelled them with radio challenges.
The latest maneuvers by four China coast guard ships took place in the contiguous zone, a band of water 12-24 nautical miles from the shores of the Senkakus, according to Japanese maritime authorities.
Japan did not identify the Chinese ship carrying the suspected armament on its deck. Its coast guard did not immediately respond to a written request for comment.
China’s coast guard, whose equipment includes retired Chinese navy warships, could not be reached for comment.
At least three former Jiangwei I-class frigates have been transferred to China’s maritime law enforcement agency. They were stripped of their missile systems but retained twin 37-millimeter automatic naval guns on their upper decks.
TED ALJIBE/AFP via Getty Images
On Friday, Tokyo said four Chinese ships were detected within the territorial sea of the Senkakus, shortly after U.S. President Joe Biden reaffirmed his pledge to defend the islands from an armed attack during a summit with Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida.
Japan’s prime minister later told a joint-session of Congress that China presented “an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge” to the world.
Biden’s intervention from the White House drew a formal complaint from the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., which told both governments to “immediately stop interfering in China’s internal affairs,” and to “stop forming anti-China cliques.”
The Chinese Embassy in Tokyo responded to what it called “negative content concerning China” in Kishida’s address by declaring: “[T]he Diaoyu Islands are China’s territory. Whatever Japan and the United States say and whatever they do cannot alter these absolute facts.”
“China’s positions and propositions on the East China Sea and South China Sea issues have a full historical and legal basis,” the embassy said.
After meeting Kishida, Biden hosted President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines, another U.S. treaty ally locked in a territorial dispute with China. The three leaders then held a first-ever trilateral summit and declared their mutual support for each other’s positions in the East and South China seas.
“Today, President Biden reaffirms the ironclad U.S. alliance commitments to both Japan and the Philippines,” a White House readout said.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it summoned the Japanese and Philippine ambassadors for separate demarches.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.