China Creates Air Defense Zone Over Japan-controlled Islands

Tokyo branded as “very dangerous” a move by Beijing Saturday to set up an “air defense identification zone” over an area that includes disputed islands controlled by Japan but claimed by China.

In a move that raised the temperature of a bitter territorial dispute between the two countries, China's defense ministry said that it was setting up the zone to “guard against potential air threats.”

It later scrambled air force jets, including fighter planes, to carry out a patrol mission Saturday in the newly established zone.

The outline of the zone, which is shown on the Chinese defense ministry website and a state media Twitter account, covers a wide area of the East China Sea between South Korea and Taiwan. The area includes airspace above the Tokyo-controlled islands known as Senkaku to Japan and Diaoyu to China.

Junichi Ihara, who heads the Japanese foreign ministry's Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau, lodged a protest by phone to Han Zhiqiang, minister at the Chinese Embassy in Japan, the ministry said in a...