Japan’s Ministry of Defense said “two ships, one from the Chinese Navy and the other from the Russian Navy, were sighted near Japanese territorial waters off the Senkaku Islands,” disputed islands in the East China Sea.

The ministry said in a statement: “A Chinese frigate entered an area adjacent to Japanese waters southwest of Utsuri Island, while a Russian frigate entered an adjacent area off the coast of the Senkaku Islands for more than an hour.” stated that “Ministry officials analyze the purpose of each ship while continuing to monitor their movement.

“The Japanese government has sent formal representations to the Chinese government through diplomatic channels, and has also called for a recurrence of this,” the statement said.

It is worth noting that there is a territorial dispute between Japan and China over the Senkaku Islands, as they are called in Tokyo, or the Diaoyu Islands, as they are called in Beijing, administratively controlled by Japan, while China and Taiwan also claim their right to them.

This group of islands is uninhabited and stretches on the continental shelf of the East China Sea about 170 km north of Taiwan and about 400 km west of Okinawa, Japan, and about 170 km from the Japanese island of Ishigaki.