Japan lodges protest with China over 'unusual' air encounters, warns against accidental collisions

By Berk Kutay Gokmen

ISTANBUL (AA) - Japan on Thursday lodged a protest with China over “unusual” air encounters between the military aircraft of two countries and warned against accidental collisions.

Vice Foreign Minister Funakoshi Takehiro expressed Tokyo’s "concerns" to China’s Ambassador in Tokyo Wu Jianghao, a Japanese Foreign Ministry statement said.

The statement said that on July 9-10, Chinese military aircraft “made unusual close approaches toward (Japanese) Air Self-Defense Force aircrafts conducting surveillance and monitoring operations over the East China Sea.”

Funakoshi emphasized that these actions might "lead to unintended collisions" and urged Beijing to "prevent such actions from happening again."

There was no immediate response from the Chinese side to Japanese claims.

On June 7 and 8, Japan claimed that a Chinese J-15 fighter jet launched from the aircraft carrier Shandong flew as close as roughly 45 meters (nearly 148 feet) to a Japanese surveillance aircraft.

The Japanese government had expressed its "serious concern" to China and urged Beijing to take measures to avoid similar incidents in the future.

In response, the Chinese Foreign Ministry accused Japan of "coming close and spying on China's normal military activities," calling on Tokyo to stop such "dangerous actions."