Chinese navy brushes past Okinawa islands amid tension with Japan

PHOTO CAPTION: Illustrative file photo — The Chinese Navy’s guided missile destroyer Nanchang takes part in a naval parade. (REUTERS/Jason Lee)

BEIJING  -  China said a group of its naval vessels, including a destroyer, passed through a waterway between two islands administered by the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa on Wednesday as it returned home after testing far-seas capabilities. 

Vessel formation 133 dispatched by the People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theater Command completed its training in the Western Pacific, and has returned through the Yonaguni-Iriomote Waterway, said the command, which is responsible for East China, the East China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. 

While non-Japanese vessels are allowed to pass through the narrow band of waters in the middle of the Yonaguni-Iriomote Waterway, Japan reserves the right to take action if vessels stray into the country's territorial sea, defined as seas 12 nautical miles (22 km) from its shoreline.

The width of the waterway is about 65 km (35 nautical miles).

On Sunday, to reach the Pacific Ocean, the PLA formation sailed through a waterway between the Japanese islands of Amami Oshima and Yokoate, a passage northeast of the Yonaguni-Iriomote Waterway and farther away from Taiwan. The transit followed the passage of a Japanese destroyer through the Taiwan Strait on Friday that Beijing said was a "deliberate provocation". 

China regards democratically governed Taiwan as part of its "sacred" territory despite Taipei's rejection of the claim. Beijing has responded aggressively on occasion to foreign navies sailing through the Taiwan Strait, which Beijing says is not international waters. 

The Japanese transit last week provoked an angry response from the Chinese foreign ministry, which said Japan's deployment of a military vessel in the Taiwan Strait was "a display of force" and "a deliberate provocation" that threatens China's sovereignty and ⁠security.

The Chinese defence ministry said then that the passage of the Japanese destroyer had sent a "wrong" signal to pro-independence forces in Taiwan. 

Sino-Japanese ties have significantly weakened since November last year when Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could spark a military response from Japan. 

Yonaguni, just 110 km (68 miles) off Taiwan's eastern coast, is increasingly on the radar of both China and Japan. 

In September 2024, the Liaoning passed through the Yonaguni-Iriomote Waterway, marking the first transit of a Chinese aircraft carrier in Japan's contiguous waters, triggering loud protests from Tokyo.     

In November last year, the Japanese defence ministry said it had been advancing a plan to deploy a medium-range surface-to-air missile unit at a military base on the island. 

The plan has since triggered even more hostility from China, which has said the move was "extremely dangerous". 

 (Reporting by Ryan Woo; Editing by Tom Hogue, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Muralikumar Anantharaman // REUTERS)