A Chinese military aircraft’s incursion into Japanese airspace is “utterly unacceptable” and is considered a threat to Japan’s safety, the government’s top spokesman said Tuesday, as officials grappled with the rationale and response a day after the incident off Nagasaki Prefecture.
“The violation of our country's airspace by Chinese military aircraft is not only a serious violation of our country's sovereignty, but also a threat to our safety, and we consider it utterly unacceptable,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told a news conference.
The Defense Ministry said it had scrambled fighter jets as a Chinese military Y-9 intelligence-gathering plane briefly entered Japanese airspace near the Danjo Islands for a couple of minutes on Monday morning, from 11:29 a.m. to 11:31 a.m.