One in three Japan Coast Guard vessels has gone into use beyond its operational time limit, constraining the coastguard’s capacity at a time when its roles are growing in importance amid Chinese muscle-flexing around disputed islands in the East China Sea, coastguard officials said on Saturday.
The officials attributed the ageing of the fleet to a slow replacement process following the last mass fleet expansion decades ago after Japan extended its territorial waters and fishing zone in 1977.
The coastguard has set a 25-year use period for relatively large patrol ships in its fleet, and a 20-year use limit for its smaller patrol boats. Of the 366 patrol vessels large and small, 129 vessels, or 35 per cent, had exceeded their operational time limits by the end of March.
Six more vessels will have exceeded their time limits by the end of next March. Over a 10-year period after that, 98 more vessels are expected to reach their use period limits.
In 1977 Japan extended its territorial waters from 3 nautical miles (about 5.5km) from the shore to 12 miles, while establishing a 200-mile fishing zone.