BEIJING — Japan’s increased scrambling of military aircraft in response to Chinese flights is endangering safety between the Asian powers in the air and at sea, Beijing’s defence ministry said Thursday.
The defence ministry in Tokyo announced earlier this month that the country’s military had scrambled aircraft a total of 207 times to respond to incursions by Chinese aircraft between April and September, up from 149 cases during the same six-month period last year.
Asked about the Japanese statistics at a monthly press conference, Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) spokesman Yang Yujun said the numbers showed that Japan was endangering safety.
“These statistics themselves show that the frequency of Japanese military aircraft close-in surveillance and monitoring of Chinese military aircraft are on the rise,” Yang said.
Such action “is the root cause for safety issues in the air and at sea between China and Japan,” he added.
“We urge Japan to stop such dangerous activities.”
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PacificSentinel: Umm... China, if you REALLY want Japan to stop scrambling fighters to intercept your spy planes, you could always stop flying into Japanese airspace! (this message brought to you by the "Doh!" department)