China has confirmed that one of its naval surveying vessels sailed close to Japanese territory over the weekend, but insisted it was a “legal passage” through international waters.
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Tokyo has expressed “strong concern” and lodged a protest with the Chinese embassy over the incident, which happened days after a Chinese reconnaissance aircraft entered Japanese airspace.
The Japanese defence ministry said the ship spent around two hours in the country’s territorial waters off the southwest of Kuchinoerabu, a small island in the Tokara Strait to the southwest of the country’s four biggest islands.
Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry, said on Monday there was “no need to deliberately link or over-interpret” the two incidents.
She said the ship “was exercising its rights of transit” and the passage was “completely legitimate and legal”.