Tokyo and Beijing traded blame Thursday over the second close and potentially dangerous encounter in just over two weeks between Chinese SU-27 fighter jets and Japanese reconnaissance planes over the East China Sea.
The close encounter took place Wednesday where the air defense identification zones of China and Japan overlap due to their claims to the Senkaku Islands, a defense official told The Japan Times.
Vice Foreign Minister Akitaka Saiki summoned Chinese Ambassador Cheng Yonghua to the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo to protest what Japanese officials described as a "very dangerous act" that could trigger an accidental clash between the two countries.
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