Japan monitoring China’s ‘alarming’ activities at sea, border with India and in Hong Kong

Taro Kono, Japan’s defence minister, said China was ‘obviously’ trying to ‘unilaterally’ change the status quo in a number of disputed areas

Tokyo earlier said it had protested against a move by Beijing to rename underwater features in the East China Sea near a group of uninhabited islets

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An undated handout photo of one of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. Photo: EPA

Published: 6:10pm, 25 Jun 2020Updated: 9:48pm, 25 Jun 2020

Japan’s defence minister on Thursday expressed concern about China’s “alarming” activities at sea, its border with India and in Hong Kong.

“Obviously, China is trying to change the status quo unilaterally in the East China Sea, the South China Sea, at the Indian border and in Hong Kong. It is easy to make connections about those issues,” Taro Kono said at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo.

“Our fighter jets scramble against Chinese airplanes [over the East China Sea] almost every day, sometimes more than once,” he said. “Their ships with guns are trying to violate our territorial waters.”

Japan said earlier it had protested against a move by Beijing to rename underwater features in the East China Sea near a group of uninhabited islands claimed by both countries.

A Chinese ship sails past Japan coastguard vessels and a Japanese fishing boat near one of the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in 2013. Photo: Reuters / Kyodo

New names for 50 canyons, sea knolls and other features were announced by China’s Natural Resources Ministry on Tuesday night. A number of the newly named features are near what China calls the Diaoyu archipelago, but are known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan. Three of the features were named after Diaoyu.