Four armed Chinese coast guard ships enter Senkaku territorial waters for the 18th day this year

Four China Coast Guard ships sailed into Japanese territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands on Monday 9 November, according to the Japan Coast Guard's 11th Regional Headquarters in Naha. The islands are called Diaoyu by China and Diaoyutai in Taiwan. The coast guard said the ships entered one after another from about 10:35 in the morning near Kuba Island, which belongs to the city of Ishigaki in Okinawa Prefecture.

All four ships had left the territorial sea by about 12:30 in the afternoon and moved into the contiguous zone just outside it, the Japanese coast guard said. It reported that every ship carried a gun, which Kyodo News described as autocannons. Japanese patrol vessels told the ships to leave Japan's waters at once, and NHK reported that the coast guard kept up its warnings and surveillance.

It was the first time since 10 October that Chinese government ships had entered the territorial sea around the islands, and Kyodo counted it as the 18th day of such incursions this year. Kyodo also said Chinese government ships had been confirmed in the area around the Senkakus, including the contiguous zone, for 16 days in a row.

Beijing presented the voyage differently. The China Coast Guard said on its website that a formation of its ships had carried out what it called a rights-protection patrol inside the territorial sea of the Diaoyu Islands, and described the operation as lawful, Taiwan's Radio Taiwan International reported. These are claims by the Chinese side, which treats the islands as Chinese territory.

The coast guard's own record points to a steady routine. According to Radio Taiwan International, the Chinese agency's website lists earlier announced patrols inside the claimed territorial sea this year on 14 January, 14 February, 18 March, 14 April, 7 May, 14 June, 23 July, 14 August and 10 September, followed by a patrol by a formation led by the ship Xiamen on 10 October. Taken at face value, that listing amounts to roughly one announced patrol a month, many of them in the middle of the month.

The Japanese accounts and the Chinese announcement agree on the basic fact that Chinese coast guard ships entered the waters on 9 November. They differ on who has the right to be there. Japan treats the entry as an intrusion into its territorial sea and responds with warnings from its own patrol ships, while China uses the same voyage to assert its claim. Radio Taiwan International described the area as waters under disputed sovereignty.

The pattern matters because the ships now arriving are armed and the presence is close to continuous. Even when they stay outside the territorial sea, Chinese government ships have been in the contiguous zone for more than two weeks without a break, which keeps Japan's coast guard on constant watch around the islands and gives Beijing a standing presence it can turn into an entry on any day it chooses.