China on Tuesday released more details about Saturday’s mid-air stand-off between Chinese and Japanese fighter jets, as the two sides traded barbs over the radar lock-on incident amid rising tensions.
The Japanese Defence Ministry claimed the Chinese ship-based J-15 fighters from aircraft carrier Liaoning had locked fire-control radars on Japan’s F-15 jets in the international airspace near Okinawa.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun stated on Tuesday that it is “standard practice for worldwide carrier-based aircraft to activate their search radars during flight training, and a routine and necessary measure to ensure flight safety.”
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His comments implied that the radar signals detected by Japan were from a routine search radar that sweeps continuously to monitor airspace, rather than from a hostile fire-control lock. However, when asked, Guo did not explicitly deny that the fire-control radar was intermittently illuminated.
An audio recording, purportedly of the radio communication between the two navies before the Liaoning began its flight exercises on Saturday afternoon, was also published on Tuesday by Yuyuantantian, a social media account run by state broadcaster CCTV.
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Why have Takaichi’s Taiwan comments sent China-Japan ties into a tailspin?
Why have Takaichi’s Taiwan comments sent China-Japan ties into a tailspin?
The clip was released as evidence that a warning was issued and confirmed before the incident, in response to Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi’s denial that the Liaoning group had announced in advance the training areas.
