Japan protests against ‘unacceptable’ route taken by China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier

Tokyo has lodged a protest with Beijing after a PLA aircraft carrier took a new route to the Pacific Ocean that brought it close to its outlying islands as well as the island of Taiwan.

China’s Liaoning carrier and two type 052D guided-missile destroyers sailed from the East China Sea into Japan’s contiguous zones passing between the islands of Yonaguni and Iriomote on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the Japanese defence ministry.

The two islands are Japan’s southwestern most isles. Yonaguni is 110km (68 miles) from Taiwan’s east coast, and 150km south of the Diaoyu, or Senkaku islands, the course of a long-running territorial dispute between China and Japan.

A contiguous zone is the area between 12 to 24 nautical miles (22-44km) from a country’s coast and where it has limited control over areas such as customs, immigration and sanitation. However, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and other international laws, it is generally considered to be international waters where foreign vessels are allowed to pass.

“This incident is totally unacceptable from the perspective of the security environment of Japan and the region, and we have expressed our serious concerns to the Chinese side through diplomatic channels,” Japanese government spokesman Hiroshi Moriya said on Wednesday.