Japan dispatches a plane and navy ship after spotting a Russian submarine

TOKYO — Japan’s military said it dispatched a surveillance plane and a navy ship Tuesday after spotting a Russian submarine off the coast of a southwestern island near Taiwan.

The Russian Kilo-class submarine was sighted just 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Yonaguni Island, Japan’s westernmost territory just east of Taiwan, the Japanese Joint Staff said in a statement.

The submarine, accompanied by a Russian naval ship, was moving northeast between Yonaguni and the nearby island of Iriomote. It was the first sighting of a Russian submarine in those waters, the Joint Staff said.

It added that Japan’s Self-Defense Forces deployed a combat support ship and a P-3 survey aircraft for warning and reconnaissance operations. There was no breach of Japan’s territorial waters by the Russian warships, it said.

Their passage came one day after the Philippine military reported sighting a Kilo-class Russian submarine in the South China Sea.

Japan is increasingly concerned about China’s growing military activity around the Japanese waters and airspace, and has significantly reinforced its defenses in the area, including remote islands that are key to Japan’s defense strategy. Japan is also worried about Russia’s military activity and their joint operations with China.

A Chinese frigate on Sunday sailed east of another Japanese southwestern remote island of Miyako. In September, the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning and two destroyers sailed between Yonaguni and Iriomote, entering Japan’s contiguous zone, an area just outside of a country’s territorial waters in which it can still exercise some control over maritime traffic.