Chinese Navy Brushes Past Okinawa Islands After Japanese Transit in Taiwan Strait

China’s naval push deeper into East Asia, prompting Taiwan and Japan to step up surveillance as tensions rising in Indo-Pacific.
File image of a Chinese PLA Navy warship operating in disputed waters in the South China Sea. China’s naval push deeper into East Asia, prompting Taiwan and Japan to step up surveillance as tensions rising in Indo-Pacific. (Photo: Ted ALJIBE / AFP)

China said a group of its naval vessels, including a destroyer, passed through a waterway between two islands administered by the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa on Wednesday as it returned home after testing far-seas capabilities.

Vessel formation 133 dispatched by the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command has completed its training in the Western Pacific, and has returned through the Yonaguni-Iriomote Waterway, said the command, which is responsible for East China, the East China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.

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