Japan may relax rules for shooting down aerial objects after 3 Chinese spy balloon incursions

Tokyo said the flying objects detected in its airspace in November 2019, June 2020 and September 2021 were ‘strongly suspected’ to have been flown by Beijing
Currently, Japan’s forces can only use weapons for legitimate self-defence or the avoidance of clear and present danger

Japan

Kyodo

Published: 8:44am, 15 Feb 2023

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Japan’s government is considering relaxing the requirements for weapon use against flying objects that violate its airspace, lawmakers said on Wednesday, a day after it said China may have flown spy balloons over the country in recent years.

At a meeting of the Liberal Democratic Party, headed by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, government officials said they are eager to allow the Self-Defence Forces (SDF) to discharge their weapons in such circumstances provided that the purpose is to secure the safety of air traffic, according to the lawmakers.

Currently, Japan’s forces can only use weapons for legitimate self-defence or the avoidance of clear and present danger. The SDF law stipulates that “necessary measures” can be taken to expel foreign aircraft or make them land if they enter Japan’s skies.

The latest move came after the defence ministry said on Tuesday that at least three unidentified flying objects were spotted over the country’s territorial airspace over three years from 2019 and are “strongly suspected” to have been unstaffed spy balloons flown by China.

The three flying objects were detected in Kagoshima prefecture, southwestern Japan, in November 2019 and the northeastern prefectures of Miyagi and Aomori in June 2020 and September 2021, respectively, the ministry said.

Tokyo demanded that Beijing confirm facts and prevent a recurrence, it said. The government also told China that Japan would never accept any violation of its territorial skies.

A ministry official said it was the first time the Japanese government has made such an announcement since US forces shot down a similar Chinese balloon on February 4 off the coast of South Carolina, renewing tensions between Washington and Beijing.

So far, four flying objects have been shot down by the US military over North American airspace this month.

02:37

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Japanese Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada told a press conference earlier Tuesday that the Self-Defence Forces will be allowed to use weapons, including air-to-air missiles, to deal with airspace incursions.

Beijing advised Tokyo to take a cautious approach. “We would like to stress that Japan needs to be objective and impartial on this instead of following the US’s suit in dramatising it,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, after a white-coloured, unidentified flying object was seen in Miyagi in June 2020, then-defence minister Taro Kono said it did not affect Japan’s security.

At the gathering on Wednesday, some LDP members criticised the government’s past approach to previous airspace intrusions by flying balloons.

“It is a big problem if the government failed to identify the balloons as Chinese ones. It is a bigger problem if it did not lodge a protest against China even though it identified them as Chinese ones,” said former defence minister Itsunori Onodera.

Additional reporting by Bloomberg