Apr 28 12:49 AM US/Eastern
TOKYO, April 28 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada on Wednesday defended Japanese Self-Defense Forces' monitoring of Chinese navy vessels that sailed near Japanese southern waters earlier this month in response to Chinese criticism of the move the day before.
"It poses no violation of law to monitor developments by keeping a certain distance," Okada said in a House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee session, adding that the two countries need to work out an arrangement to prevent a similar incident from reoccurring.
Tokyo has lodged a protest with Beijing over what it sees as "dangerous" approaches by Chinese ship-borne helicopters on April 8 and 21 toward Japanese destroyers, which were deployed for surveillance of the Chinese vessels.
On Tuesday, Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua criticized Japan for "following" the vessels "for quite a long time," telling a press conference in Japanese, "I think such a thing would be a betrayal of mutual trust."
Okada said Wednesday, "It is important that we communicate with each other to forge a common understanding on how close they can come without posing a problem and what we can do to prevent an accident."
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