Japan MSDF Destroyer Sails in Taiwan Strait for 1st Time

   Tokyo, Sept. 25 (Jiji Press)--A Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer has sailed in the Taiwan Strait for the first time ever, people familiar with relations between Japan and Taiwan said Thursday.
   The passage is an apparent warning against China's increasing maritime activities in areas near Japan.
   The MSDF destroyer Sazanami passed through the strait from the East China Sea side on Wednesday, joining vessels from Australia and New Zealand in sailing south to take part in a joint exercise in the South China Sea, the people said.
   In August, a Chinese Y-9 reconnaissance plane violated Japanese airspace off the Danjo Islands in Nagasaki Prefecture, southwestern Japan. A Chinese survey ship violated Japanese territorial waters around the island of Yakushima in the southwestern prefecture of Kagoshima.
   On Sept. 18, a Chinese aircraft carrier entered a Japanese contiguous zone between Yonaguni and Iriomote islands in the southernmost prefecture of Okinawa. On Monday, eight Chinese and Russian military vessels jointly sailed through the Soya Strait between the northernmost Japan prefecture of Hokkaido and Russia's Sakhalin.

(2024/09/26-14:20)

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