Japan intercepts Chinese naval vessels near its islands
Japan intercepted a Chinese surveillance vessel and two warships near its southwestern islands last week as the longtime U.S. treaty ally continued a yearslong practice of disclosing foreign military positions.
In separate reports published from May 9-10, Japan’s Defense Ministry said the country’s Maritime Self-Defense Force detected the Type 815G spy ship Tianquanxing maneuvering from the Philippine Sea into the East China Sea on Thursday.
Earlier the same day, Japan’s forces followed the Chinese Navy Type 054A Changzhou and Type 056 Luan, which were traveling together and headed the same way.
The Joint Staff of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces tracks adversary ships and aircraft near the country’s extensive archipelagic territory in the Western Pacific. In the fiscal year 2023-April 1 to March 31-the Joint Staff office released more than 130 independent reports detailing potential territorial sea violations by Russian and Chinese vessels.
Separately, Tokyo said Japan Air Self-Defense Force fighter aircraft were dispatched 669 times in 12 months to intercept foreign military planes near its airspace.
The Tianquanxing, an electronic intelligencegathering ship known by the NATO reporting class Dongdiao II, collects and analyzes signals, including communications and missile telemetry, using an array of antennas housed within the radar domes visible on its deck.
The Tianquanxing belongs to the second of three iterations of the Type 815 and is preceded by the more improved Type 815A. The different variants are distinguishable by their mast and radome designs.
Ships of the same class are often seen around naval exercises and weapons tests, hunting for data that might prove useful to Chinese military planners.
Japan said it dispatched the JS Kuroshima, a Sugashima-class minesweeper, to intercept the slowermoving spy ship, while the Asagiri-class destroyer JS Yamagiri and a P-3C maritime patrol aircraft were sent to shadow the Changzhou and the Luan.
All three Chinese vessels are in service with the East Sea Fleet, the naval component of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command, headquartered in Nanjing on the East China
Sea.
The Japanese Defense Ministry later confirmed that the Changzhou and the Luan were the same warships its forces had detected sailing into the Pacific on May 5. Last week, they headed north in the waters between Taiwan and Japan’s westernmost inhabited island of Yonaguni, the Joint Staff said.
Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of Chinese territory, despite Taipei’s repeated rejections, said it detected seven Chinese naval vessels operating around its main island in the 24 hours to 6 a.m. local time on May 10, according to its Defense Ministry.