BEIJING: The militaries of China and Russia carried out a joint strategic air patrol over the Sea of Japan on Friday, said China’s Ministry of National Defence.
The ministry in a statement said the patrol, the ninth of its kind, was conducted as part of the annual cooperation plan of the two militaries.
However, South Korea’s military has said that five Chinese and six Russian military aircraft entered the country’s air defence identification zone “without prior notice” on Friday afternoon.
“There was no violation of South Korean sovereign airspace,” the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
He added that its military implemented tactical measures by deploying Air Force fighter jets in preparation for an emergency.
The Chinese and Russian militaries in July this year also conducted joint air patrols over the Bering Sea.
That was the first time that two Russian Tu-95 and two Chinese H-6 bombers were spotted near the coast of the US state of Alaska.
Last month, Russian and Chinese border guards also held their first joint patrol in the northern Pacific Ocean.
The naval group consisted of the Russian patrol ships Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Anadyr, along with the Chinese coast guard vessels Meishan and Xiushan.
They patrolled in the Sea of Japan before making their way northeast into the Bering Sea, passing through the Bering Strait into the Chukchi Sea.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov during a meeting of the Council of Heads of Russian constituent entities at the Foreign Ministry said the West’s attempts to suppress the trend toward multipolarity cannot prevent the steady development of Russian-Chinese relations, Russian news agency Tass reported.
“Inter-regional ties have become one of the key components of the comprehensive Russian-Chinese partnership and strategic cooperation, and despite the current situation and the West’s attempts to dominate all processes and suppress the trend toward multipolarity, our relations with China are steadily and progressively developing,” he pointed out.
