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Japanese planes fly over Chinese-declared zone 'tension-free'

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 28, 2013 7:27AM GMT

Japan's coast guard says its planes have flown through China's newly-declared territorial air defense identification zone in the East China Sea without any resistance from the Chinese side.

Yasutaka Nonaka, the spokesman for Japan's coast guard, said on Thursday that Tokyo has not changed its "normal operation of patrolling the area where China declared its defense zone without reporting flight plans."

"We have not encountered Chinese jets," Noaka added.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference in Tokyo on Thursday that Japanese military airplanes "are carrying out surveillance activity as before in the East China Sea, including the [designated] zone."

"We are not going to change this (activity) out of consideration to China," he said, adding that Japanese naval ships and P-3C aircraft continue routine surveillance missions around the disputed islands in the East China Sea, called the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

Under new rules declared by Beijing on November 23, all aircraft flying over the zone are expected to provide full details of their flight plans to China. Japan and South Korea have rejected the demand.

Seoul said on Thursday that it has conducted a routine military surveillance exercise over the region, without informing Beijing.

The United States has also refused to abide by the Chinese-designated zone. Washington sent two B-52 bombers over the area on November 25.

US officials said the bombers were in the area for less than an hour and came across no problems.

Japan and China have long been engaged in a dispute over the sovereignty of the uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, which are located near a crucial shipping lane and give the owner exclusive oil, mineral and fishing rights in the surrounding waters.

The islands have been under Japanese administrative control since the reversion of Okinawa to Japan from the US administrative rule in 1972.

DB/HSN/HJL