Chinese vessels have entered waters around a group of contested East China Sea islets for the 101st day in a row, Japan says.
The Japanese maritime authorities said four China Coast Guard vessels entered waters near the Tokyo-administered Senkaku Islands, known in Beijing as the Diaoyu Islands.
The collection of five uninhabited islets and three barren rocks sits about 120 miles northeast of Taiwan and 200 miles southwest of Japan's Okinawa Prefecture. Taiwan also claims sovereignty there, but it is China that has been meaningfully challenging the status quo.
Beijing claims the Senkakus are its inherent territory, while Tokyo maintains there was no evidence of Chinese ownership when Japan took control over them in 1895.
On Sunday Japan's coast guard said it had spotted the Chinese ships sailing in the Senkaku's contiguous zone, a buffer area extending 12 nautical miles from territorial waters.
One of the vessels appeared to be equipped with a machine gun, local media cited the Okinawa-based 11th Regional Coast Guard as saying. A Japanese patrol boat reportedly contacted its Chinese counterparts by radio, warning them not to enter the territorial waters.
Beijing has significantly ramped up its coast guard presence in the disputed waters in recent years, first in 2012 in response to Tokyo's move to nationalize the islets, and then even more substantially in 2019.
In February, the most recent month for which there is publicly available data, Japan recorded 114 Chinese ships in the Senkaku's contiguous zone and four in its territorial waters.
After January (117), February was the month with the second-highest number of contiguous zone "intrusions" since last April (115).
Newsweek contacted the Chinese Foreign Ministry for comment via email.
"The activities of the China Coast Guard vessels, which make their own assertions in Japan's territorial waters surrounding the Senkaku Islands, are in violation of international law to begin with," Japanese Foreign Ministry Assistant Press Secretary Masashi Mizobuchi told Newsweek.
He said that in response to "such unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force," Tokyo has lodged strong protests, insisted that Beijing promptly withdraw its vessels from Japanese territorial waters, and demanded these incidents never happen again.
"Japan will continue to respond calmly and resolutely to the situation with the determination to defend Japan's territory as well as territorial waters and airspace," Mizobuchi added.
Beijing is steadily piling pressure on its neighbor to the east with its increasingly well-armed and numerous coast guard ships.
The China coast guard, nearly double the size of Japan's, has expanded its fleet, now boasting 157 cutters—some equipped with heavy weaponry like autocannons and anti-aircraft guns.
In 2021, China passed a law authorizing its coast guard to use lethal force to enforce the country's territorial claims, further raising tensions in the region.
Washington, while not taking a direct stance on the islands' sovereignty, acknowledges Japan's control, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reaffirming last year that allies' mutual defense treaty extends to the Senkaku Islands.
This means potential U.S. military involvement in the event of a major escalation with Chinese forces, backed by the over 50,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan.
Update 4/1/24, 12:30 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Masashi Mizobuchi of Japan's Foreign Ministry.
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Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ... Read more
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