Private Flight Near Senkakus Triggers Response from China, Causes Headache for Japan
Yomiuri Shimbun file photo
The Senkaku Islands are seen in Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture, in September 2013.
The government is struggling with how to respond to flights by Japanese private jets around the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture, where one such flight recently led to a Chinese aircraft intruding into Japanese airspace.
On May 3, a Japanese civilian aircraft ignored a government request to refrain from approaching the islands and flew near them. In response, China dispatched a helicopter and used the incident as a pretext for intruding into Japan's airspace.
'If a private aircraft lacking sufficient response capabilities takes a pleasure flight over the area, a civilian could be harmed. We took what we felt were necessary measures to prevent this,' said Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya on Wednesday, referring to the request that the government issued. He was speaking at a meeting of the House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee.
While explaining that Japanese private jets are in principle free to fly in Japanese airspace, Iwaya stressed that the government had asked for self-restraint to prevent unforeseen circumstances. Given the possibility for tension, the government does not want aircraft to approach the islands if it is not essential for them to do so.
At the meeting, Yuichiro Wada, a Japan Innovation Party member in the lower house, argued that if the government's request creates the impression that the islands are a disputed area, it could undercut Japan's position that 'there is no territorial issue surrounding the Senkaku Islands.'
In response, Kosei Murota, a councillor for the Cabinet Secretariat, touched on the routine intrusion into Japan's territorial waters around the islands by China's coast guard, and said that, 'In exercising our sovereignty, it is also our duty to protect the safety of the Japanese people.'
Murota also asserted that a request for self-restraint 'would not undermine Japan's sovereignty.'
The pleasure flight was planned by an 80-year-old Japanese pilot who said he 'wanted to encourage Japan Coast Guard officers who are working hard.'
The flight was discussed by the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry, the National Security Secretariat and the Cabinet Secretariat's situation response office, and they decided to ask the pilot to refrain from flying near the area, but he refused to comply.
On the afternoon of May 3, as the man's small plane approached the islands, a helicopter took off from a Chinese coast guard ship sailing in Japanese territorial waters and violated Japanese airspace. The helicopter returned to its ship after about 15 minutes, apparently waiting for the man's jet to leave the area.
China subsequently claimed that it had dispatched its helicopter to expel the Japanese civilian aircraft from 'Chinese airspace.' The incident marked the third airspace violation by China around the islands, but it was the first time China demanded a Japanese aircraft leave the area.
'Beijing will likely extend its 'salami-slicing tactic,' in which it gradually changes the status quo by force, from the sea to the sky,' said Shigeki Muto, former commander of the Air Self-Defense Force's Air Defense Command. 'By repeatedly violating Japan's territorial waters and airspace, China aims to give the international community the impression that it has effective control over the Senkaku Islands.'
The government will likely discuss whether to continue calling for self-restraint from private flights or to introduce legal restrictions.
However, according to the Civil Aeronautics Law, no-fly zones can only be issued for areas that pose an evident physical danger, such as places where radar systems are deployed by U.S. forces in Japan and there is a risk of instrument failure onboard aircraft. That makes it difficult to create regulations that are binding.
'We will carefully study what measures will leave China with no excuses for illegally entering Japan's territory,' said a government official.
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