Japan calls Chinese military aircraft incursion 'unacceptable' threat to safety

A Chinese military Y-9 intelligence-gathering aircraft that Japan's Defense Ministry said "violated" Japanese airspace is seen on Monday. Handout photo

by JESSE JOHNSON
August 27, 2024

A Chinese military aircraft’s first-ever incursion into Japanese airspace is “utterly unacceptable” and is considered a threat to Japan’s safety, the government’s top spokesman said Tuesday, a day after the incident off Nagasaki Prefecture.

“The violation of our country's airspace by Chinese military aircraft is not only a serious violation of our country's sovereignty, but also a threat to our safety, and we consider it utterly unacceptable,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told a news conference.

Japan’s Defense Ministry said it had scrambled fighter jets as a Chinese military Y-9 intelligence-gathering plane briefly entered Japanese airspace near the Danjo Islands off Nagasaki Prefecture for a couple of minutes on Monday morning, from 11:29 a.m. to 11:31 a.m.