BEIJING– China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, has issued a sharp warning to Japan, claiming that Tokyo now poses a “serious military threat” to China. He made the comments on Monday during talks in Beijing with German State Secretary Johann Wadephul.
Chinese state media first reported the remarks, which the German side later confirmed. The statement came only days after Chinese J-15 fighter jets reportedly locked their fire-control radars on Japanese maritime patrol aircraft over the East China Sea, an action military experts often view as a step that comes just before launching missiles.
A senior official at Japan’s defence ministry, who spoke to reporters in Tokyo on condition of anonymity, said the Japanese P-3C Orion and OP-3C reconnaissance planes “did not do anything that could be considered a provocation”.
The aircraft were, according to the official, carrying out routine patrols in international airspace. The incident took place on Thursday last week, above waters close to the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning, which was holding training exercises with its air wing.
“Locking radar on another country’s military aircraft is an extremely dangerous and hostile act,” the official said. “We view this as a serious escalation.”
Second Near Miss in Two Weeks
Thursday’s radar-lock incident is the second tense aerial encounter in less than two weeks.
On 25 November, Japan scrambled fighter jets from bases in the southwest after its radar units picked up what the defence ministry called a “suspected Chinese unmanned aerial vehicle” circling near Yonaguni, Japan’s westernmost inhabited island, around 110 km east of Taiwan.
Japan’s jets did not intercept the drone, but its presence triggered an emergency response by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force. Yonaguni, a small subtropical island with under 2,000 residents, has suddenly found itself at the front line of regional security tensions.
Tokyo announced last month that it will permanently station medium-range surface-to-air and anti-ship missiles on the island by the end of fiscal 2026, a decision Beijing swiftly condemned as “provocative militarisation” of Japanese territory close to China.
Reuters quoted a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson on Monday as saying that Japan’s missile plans “severely undermine regional peace and stability and are completely unacceptable”.
Pattern of Rising China Pressure
Commentators say these latest incidents fit a broader pattern of mounting Chinese military pressure across the Indo-Pacific region.
Taiwan’s defence ministry reports that, in the past year, Chinese combat aircraft have flown more than 180 sorties into Taiwan’s air-defence identification zone, a sharp rise compared with previous years. Beijing sees self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province and has not ruled out the use of force to bring the island under its control.
Further south, the Philippines and Vietnam have repeatedly accused Chinese coastguard and maritime militia vessels of ramming fishing boats, using water cannons, and blocking resupply missions in the disputed Spratly and Paracel archipelagos. Manila won a clear legal victory at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016, when judges rejected Beijing’s wide claims in the South China Sea, but China has refused to accept the ruling.
Japan has faced its own long-running tensions with China around the Senkaku Islands, which China calls the Diaoyu. Tokyo administers the islands, but Beijing claims them. Chinese coastguard vessels now operate in the surrounding contiguous zone on an almost constant basis, and at times enter what Japan regards as its territorial waters.
German Official Pulled into Regional Dispute
Monday’s talks in Beijing were originally planned to focus on China–Germany economic ties and the war in Ukraine. Instead, Wang Yi used the meeting to deliver a strong attack on what he called Japanese “militarism”.
In a statement released by China’s foreign ministry, Wang told Johann Wadephul: “Certain countries outside the region, encouraged by the United States, are deliberately hyping the ‘China threat’ theory and rapidly strengthening military deployment against China. Japan, in particular, has taken a series of negative actions recently that seriously threaten China’s sovereignty and security.”
The German side did not publicly respond to the criticism during the visit. A German foreign ministry spokesperson later told the BBC that Berlin “takes note of China’s concerns but continues to call on all parties to exercise restraint and resolve disputes peacefully in accordance with international law”.
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshimasa Hayashi, gave a firm response at a regular press briefing in Tokyo on Tuesday morning.
“Japan’s defence policy is purely defensive in nature,” Hayashi said. “We have no intention of threatening any country. At the same time, we will firmly protect our territory, territorial waters and airspace.”
Hayashi added that Japan has lodged a formal protest over Thursday’s radar-lock incident through diplomatic channels and has urged China to prevent similar actions in the future.
Growing Tension Across the Region
The latest confrontation has unsettled governments around East and South-East Asia. In Manila, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said the Philippines is “monitoring the situation in the East China Sea with grave concern”. Vietnam’s foreign ministry again called for “freedom of navigation and overflight” in line with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Security analysts warn that any misjudgment in the crowded airspace and busy sea lanes of East Asia could escalate very quickly.
“Radar locks, emergency scrambles, missile deployments on remote islands, we are seeing all the ingredients for an accidental clash,” Dr Euan Graham, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore, told Reuters. “The risk is particularly high when political rhetoric on both sides is becoming more uncompromising.”
For now, there are no signs of imminent high-level talks between Tokyo and Beijing on official schedules. China’s Liaoning carrier group is still operating in the western Pacific, and Japan’s defence ministry says its forces will maintain “heightened vigilance”.
As winter storms start to hit the East China Sea, governments across the region are preparing for what many fear could be a long and dangerous season.
