TOKYO — Japan summoned China’s ambassador and lodged a formal protest after carrier-based Chinese jets twice locked fire-control radar on Air Self-Defence Force fighters shadowing the aircraft carrier Liaoning near Okinawa during large-scale drills that saw roughly 100 carrier sorties, officials said Saturday. Tokyo denounced the radar locks as “dangerous” and “extremely regrettable,” warning they signalled a potential missile attack and sharply increased the risk of an in-flight miscalculation, Dec. 8, 2025.
Liaoning drills push past 100 sorties near Okinawa.
Japan’s Defence Ministry says the Liaoning strike group, accompanied by three missile destroyers, sailed through waters between Okinawa and Miyako Island into the Pacific while its air wing carried out about 100 takeoffs and landings over the weekend. Japan scrambled F-15 fighters to monitor the carrier group as it operated in international airspace southeast of the Okinawa island chain.
According to Japan’s Defence Ministry, J-15 fighters launched from Liaoning intermittently illuminated Air Self-Defence Force F-15s with fire-control radar in two separate episodes on Dec. 6, one lasting about three minutes in the late afternoon and another stretching for roughly 30 minutes in the evening. No injuries or damage were reported, and no Japanese airspace was violated, but officials stressed that using fire-control radar is treated as a sign that an attack could follow.
In an overnight press conference, Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said Tokyo had filed a strong protest with Beijing, calling the radar locks “an extremely regrettable act” that “exceeded the scope necessary for safe aircraft operations.” A detailed timeline published by defence outlet Naval News describes J-15s from Liaoning repeatedly targeting Japan Air Self-Defence Force F-15s over international waters southeast of Okinawa during the carrier’s flight training.
Tokyo blasts ‘dangerous’ radar locks, Beijing accuses harassment.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara insisted Japanese jets maintained a safe distance while tracking the Liaoning group and rejected Chinese claims that they endangered flight operations. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi promised a “calm and resolute” response, saying Japan would step up surveillance around its southwestern islands while seeking to prevent escalation.
Vice Foreign Minister Takehiro Funakoshi summoned Chinese Ambassador Wu Jianghao to the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo, where he reportedly labelled the radar locks “extremely regrettable” and urged Beijing to prevent a repeat of the incident. The episode comes a month after Takaichi said Japan could respond if Chinese moves against Taiwan posed a “survival-threatening” danger to Japan, remarks that have already chilled ties with Beijing.
China has pushed back forcefully. A navy spokesperson, Senior Col. Wang Xuemeng, said the Liaoning carrier group was engaged in pre-announced training east of the Miyako Strait and accused Japanese aircraft of repeatedly approaching and “harassing” the drills, a line echoed in Chinese state media. Beijing argues its far-seas exercises comply with international law and says it “solemnly demands” Japan stop “slandering and smearing” the Chinese military.
The Liaoning incident fits a pattern of radar disputes.
Japanese officials say Saturday’s radar locks are believed to be the first publicly acknowledged case involving Chinese and Japanese military aircraft, but the underlying dispute is not new. In 2013, Tokyo also summoned China’s envoy after a PLA Navy frigate allegedly locked weapons radar on a Maritime Self-Defence Force destroyer in the East China Sea, a confrontation recalled in contemporaneous reporting by Al Jazeera. Analysts note that the incident became a turning point in Japan’s threat perceptions and helped spur expanded monitoring of Chinese forces around the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.
The Liaoning’s presence off Okinawa likewise reflects a decade-long trend of more frequent Chinese carrier operations near Japan’s southwest islands. As early as 2022, Japan’s Defence Ministry was already tracking a Chinese carrier group, including Liaoning, transiting between Okinawa and Miyakojima while helicopters and fighters flew training profiles in the area, according to a Reuters report on that deployment. Since then, Japan has invested heavily in new radars, long-range missiles, and upgraded air bases across the Ryukyu chain.
Taiwan and allies frame the wider stakes.
The latest Liaoning sortie surge unfolds against a wider backdrop of rising military friction in the Indo-Pacific. Japanese and Australian defence ministers, meeting in Tokyo as news of the radar locks broke, jointly warned that unsafe encounters at sea and in the air increase the risk of miscalculation just as regional tensions over Taiwan, the South China Sea and contested airspace are mounting.
For Tokyo, the Liaoning incident reinforces concerns that China’s growing carrier fleet — which now includes the more advanced Shandong and Fujian — will operate more often near Japanese territory, complicating air-defence planning around Okinawa and the Miyako Strait. For Beijing, the standoff provides another opportunity to portray Japan as a spoiler aligned too closely with Washington and Taipei.
Both governments say they intend to respond “calmly,” and there have been no reports of further radar locks since Saturday. But with Liaoning’s air wing now flying intensive drills on Japan’s doorstep and political ties already strained, security experts warn that the margin for error around Okinawa is narrowing — and that even one misinterpreted radar signal could carry consequences far beyond the East China Sea.
