Chinese warship enters Japanese territorial sea

A Chinese People’s Liberation Army-Navy Type 815 Dongdiao-class spy ship entered Japanese territorial waters on Wednesday, according to Japan’s defense ministry.

The move is the first of its kind since 2004, when a Chinese nuclear submarine entered Japan’s 12 nautical mile territorial sea near Sakishima Islands, in Okinawa prefecture.

According to Kyodo news report a ‘naval intelligence ship was spotted around 3:30 a.m. west of Kuchinoerabu Island,’ reports the diplomat.

The ship ‘left the territorial waters just a few hours later.’ (Japan’s Defense Ministry notes that the ship left around 5 a.m.) Kuchinoerabu Island is approximately 38 nautical miles from the Japanese island of Kyushu, which is one of Japan’s four main islands along with Honshu, Hokkaido, and Shikoku.

Japan and China have a territorial dispute in the East China Sea over the sovereignty of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, which are administered by Japan, but claimed by China.
Wednesday’s incident did not take place in the vicinity of these islands. (The Senkakus are approximately 450 nautical miles from Kuchinoerabu Island.)
Last week, however, for the first time ever, a Chinese warship entered the contiguous zone of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, in a move that highlights growing tensions between the two countries in the East China Sea.

It’s unclear if Wednesday’s incident saw the Chinese warship comply with international law under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the international treaty on maritime law that both Japan and China have ratified.

Under Article 18 of UNCLOS, ‘foreign warships are permitted continuous and expeditious’ passage through another state’s territorial sea provided they comply with the provisions governing ‘innocent passage,’ detailed in Article 19.

One of the requirements of innocent passage is that ships traverse across the territorial sea without engaging in intelligence collection activities.

The fact that China sent the Dongdiao-class, an intelligence-gathering vessel, and lingered for what Kyodo described as a ‘few hours’ suggests that Japan may have reason to believe that the PLAN vessel did not comply with innocent passage requirements.

This, however, remains indeterminate based on what information the Japanese Defense Ministry has disclosed so far.