Another incident between China, Japan fighter jets

IN A very close encounter which Japan's defence minister Itsunori Onodera described as being "outright over the top", Chinese fighter jets reportedly came within 30 metres of a Japanese Self Defence Forces (SDF) aircraft over the East China Sea at the weekend.

Two SDF aircraft were monitoring a joint naval drill by China and Russia in the sea near Japanese territorial waters when the incident occurred on Saturday, a Japanese government source was reported by Kyodo news service as saying. Japan immediately lodged a diplomatic protest with China.

The Chinese Defense Ministry retorted yesterday that the country's military scrambled fighter jets on Saturday in response to Japanese SDF aircraft entering an air defence identification zone that China unilaterally established over the East China Sea last year.