China’s sweeping claims over the strategic South China Sea, where it has built a series of artificial islands capable of supporting military operations despite overlapping claims from other nations, have stoked international alarm.
The region’s superpower “continues to act in an assertive manner” and its actions “include dangerous acts that could cause unintended consequences,” Tokyo said in a defense white paper.
Beijing is under pressure to respect a UN-backed tribunal’s finding last month that there is no legal basis for its ambitions over the resource-rich South China Sea where the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and others also lay claims.
The white paper said China was “poised to fulfill its unilateral demands without compromise” including efforts “to turn these coercive changes to the status quo into a fait accompli.”
And it again called on Beijing to abide by the ruling of the tribunal, which China has denounced as a fraud.
Japan also expressed concern over increased activity in the East China Sea, where the two countries have competing claims over a group of small uninhabited islets called the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.
“Recently, China has been intensifying activities near the Senkaku Islands, such as its military aircraft flying southward closer to the islands,” it said.
In the year to March 2016, Japan’s air force scrambled jets 571 times against Chinese planes flying near Japanese airspace, an increase of 107 from the previous year, it added, AFP reported.
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