Tokyo branded as "very dangerous" a move by Beijing Saturday to set up an "air defence identification zone" over an area that includes disputed islands controlled by Japan, but claimed by China.
In a move that raised the temperature of a bitter territorial row between the two countries, China's defence ministry said that it was setting up the zone to "guard against potential air threats".
It later scrambled air force jets, including fighter planes, to carry out a patrol mission Saturday in the newly established zone.
The outline of the zone, which is shown on the Chinese defence ministry website and a state media Twitter account (pic.twitter.com/4a2vC6PH8O), covers a wide area of the East China Sea between South Korea and Taiwan that includes airspace above the Tokyo-controlled islands known as the Senkaku to Japan and Diaoyu to China.
Junichi Ihara, who heads the Japanese foreign ministry's Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau, lodged a protest by phone to Han Zhiqiang, minister at the Chinese Embassy in Japan, the ministry said in a statement.
He said Japan could "never accept the zone set up by China" as it includes the Tokyo-controlled islands, the statement said.
Ihara also told the Chinese side that such move by Beijing would "escalate" current bilateral tensions over the islands, branding it "very dangerous".
Japan's vice foreign minister Akitaka Saiki plans to summon the Chinese ambassador to Japan, Cheng Yonghua, as early as possible on Monday and state Japan's position on the matter, Kyodo news agency reported.
Source: NewsOnJapan
