U.S. security treaty ally Japan recorded intensive maneuvers by the Russian and Chinese navies in its surrounding waters in the past year, with both neighbors frequently transiting near its territory as their ships sailed in and out of the expansive waters of the Pacific Ocean, government data shows.
The Joint Staff of Japan's Self-Defense Forces logged 133 reports of close or suspicious naval activity by Russia and China across the country's vast archipelagic territory in the fiscal year 2023, which ran from April 1 to March 31, according to its Defense Ministry database.
Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Forces intercepted Russian and Chinese military vessels because of potential violations of its territorial waters on one more occasion than in the previous year—132—but nearly double the 67 instances of the fiscal year 2021, Newsweek's analysis of the reports found.
April and May 2023 saw the most activity, with 16 and 20 notable encounters with Russian or Chinese naval assets, respectively.
A Newsweek map, based on 12 months of the Joint Staff's geospatial data, shows all the approximate locations where the Japanese navy intercepted the ships and monitored them as they sailed near Japan's shores.
Seen together, it illustrates a pattern of ship movements that make frequent use of the Tsugaru Strait in the north, between Japan's main islands of Honshu and Hokkaido, as well as the Tsushima Strait, shared with South Korea, another U.S. ally.
It also shows regular use of the strategic Miyako Strait in the southwest, between the Japanese islands of Miyako and Okinawa. The latter hosts about two-thirds of the forward-deployed American troops stationed in Japan.
Visible in the graphic, shown in red circles, are the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong's deployments to the Philippine Sea last April, September, October and November, when Japanese crews photographed the flat-top—China's first domestically built carrier and its second overall—as helicopters and fighter jets took off from and landed on its deck with destroyers serving as escorts.
The map also shows the Russian navy Steregushchiy-class corvettes Gromkiy and Sovershennyy circling Japan's westernmost inhabited islands in early July, and the Vishnya-class spy ship Kurily's intelligence collection operation along Japan's eastern coastline the following month.
Depicted in yellow, meanwhile, is the pointed joint patrol around Japanese territory by Chinese and Russian warships, from July to August.
The security partners met in the Sea of Japan, where the Russian Pacific Fleet is headquartered, before embarking on a weekslong trip in the Western Pacific.
At the time, Tokyo described it as a "show of force," which was also accompanied by joint air force maneuvers. Those warplane sorties and others—nearly 700 in 12 months—were captured in a separate map published by Newsweek last week.
The Chinese and Russian defense ministries did not return multiple written requests for comment.
Japanese leader Fumio Kishida warned the U.S. Congress earlier in April about the growing alignment between Russia and North Korea, as well as China's increasingly assertive military posture in the Indo-Pacific region. The prime minister, who also met U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House, said the trend threatened to upend the existing international order.
In an exclusive interview with Newsweek, published on Monday, Kishida said Japan, and by extension the United States and other allies, were facing "the most challenging and complex security environment since the end of World War II."
Japan and China, which have a long-standing territorial dispute in the East China Sea, share "great responsibility for the peace and prosperity of the region and the international community," said Kishida.
"It is my consistent policy to make our bilateral relationship constructive and sustainable" he said. "We will continue to pursue comprehensively a 'mutually beneficial relationship,' and I believe that we must engage in a significant amount of communication with China to realize the kind of relationship I have just described."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
John Feng is Newsweek's contributing editor for Asia based in Taichung, Taiwan. His focus is on East Asian politics. He ... Read more
