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Protest lodged by Mr. Chikao Kawai, Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, to H.E. Cheng Yonghua, Ambassador of the People's Republic of China to Japan

February 8, 2013
Japanese

1. On January 8, at approximately 4:45 p.m., Mr. Chikao Kawai, Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, called H.E. Mr. Cheng Yonghua, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Japan, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs upon the instruction of Mr. Fumio Kishida, Minister for Foreign Affairs. Vice-Minister Kawai again lodged a strong protest on behalf of Japan following the February 7 explanation of the Chinese position by the Ministry of National Defense of China concerning the incident last month in which a Chinese naval vessel targeted its fire-control radar on a vessel and helicopter of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF).
2. Within the protest, Vice-Minister Kawai noted that the Chinese Government had expressed the position that the content of the incident as announced by the Japanese government was not in line with the facts of the matter. He stated that the data collected by the equipment of the JMSDF craft had been sent to an Electronic Information Support Division of the JMSDF and others, and that a careful and detailed analysis had been done on the conditions of the incident site, including the radio properties of the radar waves targeted at the craft, such as their frequency, as well as the positions of the JMSDF craft and the vessel targeting them. He further stated that the protest was being lodged following close coordination between the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs based on that analysis, and that Japan absolutely could not accept the explanation offered by China, which was not in line with the facts of the matter. He told the Chinese side that the incident was distressing, and called on China to fulfill its responsibility for an explanation sincerely and to make every effort to prevent the reoccurrence of this sort of incident in the future.
3. Furthermore, Vice-Minister Kawai stated that the occurrence of unpredictable situations between the two countries would never benefit anyone. He said that such situations were extremely damaging to the future of the Japan-China relationship and pointed out that these situations must be avoided by any means necessary. From this perspective, he again pointed out that the two countries should aim for the early start of Maritime Communication Mechanism between Japan and China’s defense authorities.
4. In response to the above, Ambassador Cheng stated the position of China, which was that Japan’s claims were untrue. He further said that China also felt bilateral communication was important, for the purpose of avoiding unpredictable situations among other reasons.

• (* The foregoing is a provisional translation. The date indicated above denotes the date of issue of the original press release in Japanese.)

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