By Chang-Ran Kim, Hina Suzuki and John Geddie
TOKYO, July 21 (Reuters) - Japan said on Tuesday it had protested to China against live-fire drills in its exclusive economic zone, drawing an angry response from Beijing, which rejects Tokyo’s rights in the remote Pacific waters.
The incident could further fray relations between Asia’s top two economies, strained since comments last year by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Taiwan, the democratic island claimed by China.
The drills, which also involved Russian vessels, were held some 180 km (110 miles) southwest of what Tokyo calls Okinotori Island early on Sunday, Japan’s military said in a statement.
China argues that Okinotori is a reef, rather than an island, and Japan is therefore not entitled to claim the waters surrounding it as part of its EEZ.
“The Japanese government lodged a protest with China through diplomatic channels, on the grounds that such activities could pose a danger to the navigation of nearby vessels,” top government spokesperson Minoru Kihara told reporters on Tuesday.
In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian called Tokyo’s concerns “completely unreasonable”, adding that China firmly rejected them.
“China’s activities on the high seas are in line with international law and practices,” he told a daily press conference. “Japan is smearing and hyping up the legitimate actions of other countries.”
CHINA AND RUSSIA STEP UP PATROLS
A spokesperson for Japan’s military said it was the first time Tokyo had publicly disclosed China’s live-fire drills in its EEZ, an area extending beyond territorial waters where countries claim rights to resources such as energy and fishing.
China and Russia have stepped up joint naval and air operations around Japan in recent years, prompting Tokyo to increase surveillance and strengthen its defences across the archipelago.
Japanese forces said they spotted four vessels — a Chinese Renhai-class guided-missile destroyer, a Luyang III-class guided-missile destroyer, a Fuchi-class replenishment ship and a Russian Steregushchiy-class frigate — sailing towards their EEZ before the livefire exercise by one of the Chinese destroyers.
Nearby vessels were warned by radio immediately before the live-firing exercise, Kihara said.
In another high-profile incident in December, Japan said Chinese fighter jets aimed their radar at Japanese military aircraft near its Okinawa islands, an account Beijing disputed.
(Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim, Nobuhiro Kubo, Hina Suzuki and John Geddie in Tokyo and the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Stephen Coates, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Clarence Fernandez)
