TOKYO — In an ominous display of growing territorial tensions between China and Japan, the Japanese Defense Ministry said Sunday that Chinese jet fighters had flown dangerously close to two of its reconnaissance planes in overlapping air defense zones claimed by both nations.
The ministry described two episodes that took place on Saturday in airspace over the East China Sea that both countries claim as “air defense identification zones,” areas bordering their sovereign airspace in which they require foreign aircraft to identify themselves and provide flight plans.
Japan has routinely ignored the Chinese air defense zone since Beijing declared it late last year. China had also not pushed its new air zone, apparently backing off after the United States immediately challenged the Chinese claim by sending a pair of unarmed B-52 heavy bombers to fly through the airspace without incident.
The Chinese stance toward at least Japanese military flights appeared to change on Saturday, when a pair of Chinese Su-27 fighters flew within 100 feet of a Japanese YS-11 propeller-driven reconnaissance plane. Earlier in the day, another pair of Chinese fighters flew within 150 feet of a Japanese P-3C, another type of propeller-driven reconnaissance plane, the ministry said.
It said the Chinese fighters took no other measures against the Japanese planes, which returned to base safely.
The flybys appeared to signal a dangerous escalation in a game of nerves between the two Asian powers for effective control of the East China Sea, including a group of uninhabited islands administered by Japan but also claimed by China. The nations’ Coast Guards regularly play high-seas games of cat and mouse around the disputed islands, with Chinese ships entering or approaching Japanese-claimed waters about once or twice a week. There have also been a growing number of episodes involving aircraft, whose greater speeds mean a higher chance of an accident or of miscalculation quickly spiraling out of control into a full-blown military confrontation. Speaking to reporters, the Japanese defense minister, Itsunori Onodera, called the close approaches by Chinese fighters a dangerous act that heightened tensions.
“We received a report from the crews that the fighter planes were armed with missiles,” Mr. Onodera said, referring to the Japanese aircrews. “The crews were on edge as they responded.”
The Chinese Ministry of National Defense confirmed on Sunday that the Chinese military jets had approached the Japanese planes, but, in a statement on its website, it defended the action as a legitimate enforcement of Beijing’s air defense zone. The ministry accused the Japanese aircraft of interfering in Chinese-Russian military exercises in the area. “Chinese military aircraft have the right to maintain air safety, and to take the necessary identification and prevention measures against foreign aircraft that enter the airspace of China’s air defense identification zone over the East China Sea,” the ministry said.
It warned Japan to “halt all surveillance and interference” over the area declared for the Chinese-Russian military exercises. “Otherwise, all the possible repercussions will be borne by Japan,” the ministry said.
Japan’s Defense Ministry said that the surge in the number of intercepts of Chinese aircraft began in 2010, after the Japanese Coast Guard arrested a Chinese trawler captain near the disputed islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. That, and Japan’s purchase of three of the five islands two years ago, brought angry reactions from China. Beijing has responded by making increasingly assertive claims over the islands and other parts of the East China Sea, sending its ships and planes in or near Japanese-claimed areas in what some analysts have described as a long-term effort to wear down Japan’s resolve.
Because Japan is the only Asian nation that is widely seen as able to match China’s military abilities, American officials and defense analysts have increasingly warned of the dangers of an unintended clash in the East China Sea expanding into a wider confrontation that could drag in the United States, which has a defense treaty with Japan.
On Sunday, Mr. Onodera, the Japanese defense minister, said that Japan had lodged a protest with China over the close approaches by the fighters. “These approaches were meant to intimidate, and were not actions that would normally be taken,” he said.
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