TOKYO - Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said enhancing the country's defense posture in the Pacific is an "urgent" task, including for information gathering and surveillance, after the recent sailing of the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning in waters off Okinawa.
Koizumi said the carrier's movement was part of efforts by China "to improve the operational capability of aircraft carriers and enhance its ability to conduct operations in distant maritime and aerial areas" as it "increasingly expands military activities around Japan."
The Liaoning, accompanied by several destroyers, sailed between the Okinawa main island and Miyako Island in the southern Japan prefecture on Wednesday as it headed from the East China Sea toward the Pacific, with carrier-borne aircraft seen taking off and landing around 10 times, the ministry said.
Japan's Self-Defense Forces responded by dispatching a destroyer and two patrol aircraft, and scrambling fighter aircraft, the ministry said. The aircraft carrier sailed toward the South China Sea on Thursday, it said.
The Chinese navy has said that the dispatch of the Liaoning, one of the country's three aircraft carriers, to the Western Pacific for an exercise was in line with an "annual routine training plan."
