World Gossip News

Japan’s coast guard says its planes have flown through China’s newly-declared territorial air defense identification zone in the East China Sea without any resistance from the Chinese side. Under new rules declared by Beijing on November 23, all aircraft flying over the zone are expected to provide full details of their flight plan to China. Japan and South Korea have rejected the demand. Seoul said on Thursday that it has conducted a routine military surveillance exercise over the region, without informing Beijing. The United States has also refused to abide the by the Chinese-imposed zone. Washington sent two B-52 bombers over the area on November 25.

Japan and China have long been engaged in a dispute over the sovereignty of the uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, which are located near a crucial shipping lane and give the owner exclusive oil, mineral and fishing rights in the surrounding waters. The islands have been under Japanese administrative control since the reversion of Okinawa to Japan from the US administrative rule in 1972.