China says it's investigating complaint it violated Japanese airspace

China says it is investigating a report from Japan that a Chinese army aircraft violated Japanese airspace, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said on Tuesday in Beijing.

China does not intend to intrude into the airspace of other countries, he said, adding that the two sides are in contact with each other.

Japan's Ministry of Defence said that a Chinese Y-9 reconnaissance aircraft flew for around two minutes over the East China Sea on Monday morning and through the airspace around the Danjo archipelago, which belongs to the south-western Japanese prefecture of Nagasaki.

Japan launched fighter jets in response. Government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi spoke of an unacceptable incident that violated Japan's territory and posed a threat to security. The government summoned China's acting ambassador to Japan to lodge a protest.

First known incident of its kind

The Japanese news agency Kyodo reported that the incident is the first time that a Chinese military aircraft has demonstrably entered Japanese airspace.

Aircraft belonging to Chinese authorities, albeit not the military, had previously violated Japan's airspace in 2012 and 2017.

The relationship between China and Japan is considered tense, partly because both sides have territorial claims to the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which are called the Diaoyu Islands in China.