Anger over Japan’s radar base situated near Chinese islands
Print Edition
JAPAN yesterday switched on a radar station in the East China Sea, giving it a permanent intelligence gathering post close to China’s Diaoyu Islands, and drawing an angry response from China.
The new Self Defense Force base on the island of Yonaguni is at the western extreme of a string of Japanese islands in the East China Sea, 150 kilometers from the Diaoyu Islands.
Japan has long been mired in a dispute with China over the East China Sea islands.
“Until yesterday, there was no coastal observation unit west of the main Okinawa island. It was a vacuum we needed to fill,” said Daigo Shiomitsu, a lieutenant colonel who commands the new base.
“It means we can keep watch on territory surrounding Japan and respond to all situations.”
Yesterday, Shiomitsu attended a ceremony at the base with 160 military personnel and around 50 dignitaries. Construction of some buildings is still unfinished.
The 30-square-kilometer island is home to 1,500 people, who mostly raise cattle and grow sugar cane. The Self Defense Force contingent and family members will increase the population by a fifth.
“This radar station is going to irritate China,” said Nozomu Yoshitomi, a professor at Nihon University and a retired major general in the Self Defense Force. In addition to being a listening post, the facility could be used a base for military operations in the region, he added.
China’s defense ministry said the international community needed to be on high alert to Japan’s military expansion.
“The Diaoyu Islands are China’s inherent territory. We are resolutely opposed to any provocative behavior by Japan aimed at Chinese territory,” it said. “The activities of Chinese ships and aircraft in the relevant waters and airspace are completely appropriate and legal.”
Japan is increasing its Self Defense Force in the East China Sea to almost 10,000 personnel over the next five years, including missile batteries that will help Japan draw a defensive curtain along the island chain.
Chinese ships sailing from their eastern seaboard must pass through this barrier to reach the Western Pacific, access to which China needs both as a supply line to the rest of the world’s oceans and for naval power projection.
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