Japan to deploy mobile radar to monitor Chinese activity in Pacific
Japan needs to more carefully monitor Chinese aircraft carriers like the Liaoning pictured here. (Gordon Arthur)
More frequent forays of Chinese aircraft carriers and their complement of fighters is worrying Japan’s military.
Japan’s MoD plann to deploy a mobile aircraft control and warning squadron of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) on the Ogasawara Islands, an archipelago 1,000km south of Tokyo in the Pacific Ocean, Japanese media reported on 31 May.
The JASDF has 28 fixed ground radar sites to conduct continuous surveillance of Japanese airspace. However, the Ogasawara Islands are a blank area for air defence surveillance because no fixed ground radar is deployed there.
The Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning has passed between Okinawa and Miyako Island more than ten times since 2016, and Chinese carriers will certainly expand their activity near
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