TOKYO-(IDB) : A Chinese naval flotilla including destroyers sailed through waters
near Japanese islands on Tuesday, in what one commentator said was a
sign of things to come as China flexes its military muscles.
The
seven warships — at least one of which was capable of firing missiles —
passed close to territory internationally recognized as Japanese. The
two nations are already embroiled in a bitter wrangle over a separate
island chain.
A defence ministry spokesman said it was the first time the Chinese navy
had used the passage, but Ryo Sahashi, a specialist in international
politics at Kanagawa University said it would not be the last.
“Generally speaking, China acts in accordance with its government’s claims,” he said.
“It
is likely that we will see similar acts repeated in the future,” he
said, while cautioning it was too early to assess the full meaning of
the move.
China’s increasingly well-funded navy is somewhat hemmed in by the long chain of Japan’s Okinawan islands and must pass relatively near them to get into the Pacific from the East China Sea.
However,
there are gaps between the islands that allow vessels to stay well away
from Japan’s contiguous zones, an area that extends a further 12
nautical miles beyond the 12 nautical miles of territorial waters.
A
defence ministry spokesman said the seven Chinese naval ships had been
involved in exercises in the Pacific Ocean, and “they passed through a
wider space between Okinawa island and Miyako island on their way out”
on October 4.
“They passed through the narrow strait on the way
back, and this is the first time we have confirmed that they passed
through this gap,” the spokesman said.
He said a Japanese spotter
aircraft had logged the vessels 49 kilometres (30 miles) south-southeast
of Yonaguni island at 7:00 am (2200 GMT Monday).
The flotilla
comprised two destroyers, at least one of which had missile capacity,
two frigates, two submarine rescue ships and one supply ship.
“They were moving north, from the Pacific Ocean to the East China Sea,” the spokesman said.
At one point the vessels entered contiguous waters, a ministry spokeswoman said.
Under
the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to which
both Japan and China are signatories, foreign vessels including military
ships have the right to use the contiguous zone.
But a state is
allowed to exercise control to “prevent infringement of its customs,
fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations within its
territory or territorial sea”, UNCLOS says.
“At this time, we are
not seeing such acts as helicopters flying from these naval ships and
approaching toward our nation or (the ships) sailing within our
territorial waters,” Defence Minister Satoshi Morimoto told a press
briefing.
“We are continuing to be on alert and maintaining
surveillance of the area waters with aircraft and ships. We will
continue to carefully collect information about the movement of the
Chinese naval vessels.”
He said these Chinese exercises had been going on since 2008.
“They have gradually expanded the area of activity but we cannot tell what intentions lie behind that,” Morimoto told reporters.
Jiji press reported on Tuesday evening that the flotilla was moving northwest towards the Chinese coast.
The
move comes after days of relative calm in a long-running dispute over
the sovereignty of a small group of islands in the East China Sea.
Tokyo
and Beijing are at loggerheads over the Senkaku islands, which are
administered by Japan but claimed by China, which calls them the Diaoyu
islands.
Over the last few weeks Chinese government ships — maritime surveillance
ships and fisheries patrol vessels — have repeatedly sailed close to
the archipelago, but the country’s armed forces have apparently stayed
away.
The dispute flared in August after landings by nationalists
from both sides and the subsequent nationalization of the islands by
Tokyo.
Large public protests rocked Chinese cities, forcing Japanese firms to shutter or scale back their operations.
Two-way
trade, worth well in excess of $300 billion last year, is starting to
show signs of impact from the dispute. Automaker Toyota was reported
Tuesday to be planning to temporarily close a factory in China because
of falling demand for Japanese goods.
