Japan opens radar station close to disputed isles in E. China Sea

PanARMENIAN.Net - Japan on Monday, March 28, switched on a radar station in the East China Sea, giving it a permanent intelligence gathering post close to Taiwan and a group of islands disputed by Japan and China, drawing an angry response from Beijing, Reuters reports.

The new Self Defense Force base on the island of Yonaguni is at the western extreme of a string of Japanese islands in the East China Sea, 150 km south of the disputed islands known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.

"Until yesterday, there was no coastal observation unit west of the main Okinawa island. It was a vacuum we needed to fill," said Daigo Shiomitsu, a Ground Self Defense Force lieutenant colonel who commands the new base on Yonaguni. "It means we can keep watch on territory surrounding Japan and respond to all situations."

Shiomitsu on Monday attended a ceremony at the base with 160 military personnel and around 50 dignitaries.

Construction of some buildings, which feature white walls and traditional Okinawan red-tiled roofs, is still unfinished.

The 30-sq-km island is home to 1,500 people, who mostly raise cattle and grow sugar cane. The Self Defence Force contingent and family members will increase the population by a fifth.

"This radar station is going to irritate China," said Nozomu Yoshitomi, a professor at Nihon University and a retired major general in the Self Defence Force.

China's defense ministry, in a statement sent to Reuters about the radar station, said the international community needed to be on high alert to Japan's military expansion.

"The Diaoyu Islands are China's inherent territory. We are resolutely opposed to any provocative behavior by Japan aimed at Chinese territory," it said.

"The activities of Chinese ships and aircraft in the relevant waters and airspace are completely appropriate and legal."