Chinese and Russian military activities in the waters and airspace around Japan remain busy.

Chinese UAVs have been recently observed to fly northwards over the Pacific Ocean after passing the area between the main island of Okinawa and Miyakojima Island, not only to Okinawa Prefecture but also to the offshore areas of islands belonging to Kagoshima Prefecture. It remains to be seen what the purpose of these provocative flight patterns is and whether they will become norm in the future.

Russian intelligence-gathering vessels continue to navigate around Japan, particularly in Japan's contiguous waters. It is necessary to keep a close watch on how long these harassing practices will continue and what their objectives are.

[Statistical Data as of March13]

Japan Coast Guard (JCG) daily updates the statistical data on the number of China Coast Guard vessels entering in the contiguous zone around the Senkaku Islands and intruding into Japanese territorial waters. The below is from the website of JCG.

(https://www.kaiho.mlit.go.jp/mission/senkaku/senkaku.html)