China said on Friday that its coast guard has been patrolling Japan administered islands in the East China Sea almost daily, describing the activity as necessary to safeguard sovereignty and deter what it called moves by Taiwan towards independence.
The patrols around the tiny, uninhabited islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, risk further heightening tensions between Beijing and Tokyo. The two countries are locked in their most serious diplomatic dispute in more than a decade, triggered after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Japan might have to intervene if China attacked Taiwan.
China claims the democratically governed island of Taiwan as its own territory and has never renounced the use of force to achieve what it calls reunification. Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims and says only the island’s people can decide their future.
Near Daily Patrols Around Disputed Islands
China’s coast guard has maintained an almost constant presence near the disputed islands, according to Zhang Jianming, a coast guard official speaking at a maritime law enforcement briefing.
Zhang said Chinese coast guard vessels patrolled the waters around the Senkaku or Diaoyu islands for 357 days in 2025. Over the past five years, he added, the coast guard organised 134 patrol operations and deployed around 550,000 vessels and 6,000 aircraft in the surrounding area.
The comments underline Beijing’s growing emphasis on using maritime law enforcement assets to assert its territorial claims. According to a Reuters report in May, China has steadily increased both coast guard and naval activity in the East China Sea as part of a broader effort to reinforce control over contested waters.
Strategic Importance Of The Island Chain
The disputed islands sit within what is known as the first island chain, a strategic arc stretching from Japan through Taiwan and down to the Philippines. The chain is largely controlled by allies of the United States and is seen by Beijing as a barrier to the expansion of China’s naval power into the Pacific.
As a result, activity around the islands is closely watched by regional governments and defence planners. Analysts say regular patrols serve both as a signal of sovereignty claims and as a way to normalise China’s presence in the area.
Long History Of Maritime Tensions
The islands have been a recurring source of friction between China and Japan for decades. The last major crisis occurred in 2010, when Japan’s coast guard detained a Chinese fishing boat captain after his vessel collided with Japanese patrol ships near the islands. The incident sparked a sharp diplomatic standoff.
Tensions flared again in 2012 after the Japanese government announced it had purchased several of the islands from private Japanese owners. China responded by dispatching coast guard vessels to the area, significantly increasing patrols.
More recently, another confrontation took place last month. China said it expelled an “illegal” Japanese fishing boat from waters near the islands. Japan, however, said it intercepted and expelled two Chinese coast guard ships that had approached the vessel.
To avoid further escalation, Tokyo has since urged Japanese fishermen to stay away from the disputed waters, according to Reuters.
With inputs from Reuters
