China launches naval drills to mark Japan's war defeat
Beijing begins exercises in East China Sea and sends coastguard to disputed Diaoyus amid fury over ministers' visit to Tokyo war shrine
The PLA Navy launched four days of exercises in the East China Sea yesterday - part of a new round of sabre-rattling by Beijing coinciding with anniversary of Japan's defeat in the second world war.
The military muscle-flexing came as Beijing vented anger over the decision by top-level Japanese politicians to visit a Tokyo shrine commemorating Japan's war dead, including several war criminals.
China's first aircraft carrier - the refurbished Soviet-era warship now called Liaoning - was also dispatched from its home port of Qingdao, Shandong province, for training of ship-borne aircraft and other manoeuvres, China News Service reported yesterday.
Mainland media speculated the ship might be sailing to the northern Bohai Sea off Liaoning province, where a separate round of military exercises began yesterday.
The exercises in the Bohai and East China seas come against the backdrop of the territorial dispute between Beijing and Tokyo over the Diaoyu, or Senkaku, islands. The East China Sea drills will be conducted off the coast of Zhejiang province by the East Sea Fleet, which oversees the waters around the Diaoyus.
Meanwhile, a China Coast Guard vessel passed close by a Japan Coast Guard ship, just south of the chain's largest island, Kyodo News reported.