People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – including PLA Navy and Naval Aviation

China’s military uses drills, bomber patrols, and radar locks to push back on Japan and the US. - Concluded Liaoning patrol after radar incident; expanding long-term carrier and bomber capabilities

What began with Chinese carrier fighters lighting up Japanese jets with radar near Okinawa has mushroomed into a full-spectrum crisis. After China and Russia sent bombers circling Japan, the US flew B-52s with Japanese fighters over the Sea of Japan. Then Beijing struck back economically: on January 6, 2026, China banned all dual-use exports to Japan's military—rare earths, aerospace alloys, advanced electronics—citing Tokyo's "egregious" Taiwan stance. Meanwhile Japanese lawmakers visited Taiwan in droves through December, the Liaoning carrier returned home after six days and 260 sorties, and Japan briefed NATO on what it calls China's deliberate intimidation.

Updated Jan 9

The PLA is China’s armed forces, comprising ground, naval, air, rocket, and strategic support forces, and is central to Beijing’s efforts to project power in the Western Pacific. - Conducting carrier and air operations near Okinawa and Taiwan, accused of unsafe radar behavior

On December 6, 2025, two Chinese J-15 carrier-based fighter jets from the aircraft carrier Liaoning intermittently illuminated their fire-control radar on Japanese Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF) F-15 fighters over international waters southeast of Okinawa, in two encounters lasting roughly three minutes and about thirty minutes respectively. Japan’s defense minister Shinjiro Koizumi denounced the radar lock-ons—which militaries treat as the step immediately before weapons launch—as “dangerous” and “extremely regrettable,” and Tokyo lodged a formal protest with Beijing. Analysts noted this was the first publicly acknowledged fire-control radar lock between Chinese and Japanese military aircraft, echoing a 2013 episode when a Chinese frigate locked weapons radar on a Japanese destroyer near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.

Updated Dec 11, 2025