Concerns are growing in Tokyo after a Chinese government helicopter violated Japan's airspace around the Senkaku Islands, following a flight by a small Japanese civilian plane in the area and as Beijing sent government ships to the waters near the uninhabited islets in the East China Sea for more than 170 straight days.
On May 3, a China Coast Guard helicopter entered Japan’s territorial airspace around the Japanese-controlled, Chinese-claimed Senkaku Islands — marking just the fourth such incursion by a Chinese aircraft and the first by a helicopter, according to the Defense Ministry.
As of Monday, the Chinese side had also sent government ships to the area for 175 consecutive days. A day earlier, the Japan Coast Guard spotted a Chinese research vessel lowering a pipe-like object into the waters within Japan's exclusive economic zone, some 235 kilometers north-northeast of Taisho Island, one of the Senkakus.
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