Forty-five metres. That was all that separated a Chinese J-15 strike-fighter and a Japanese P-3C patrol plane as they roared past each other above the western Pacific last weekend—less than half the wingspan of the lumbering Japanese aircraft. At that range, turbulence alone can jolt a cockpit; one twitch, and two nations might have been picking wreckage out of the ocean. (reuters.com)
Tokyo says the same J-15, launched from the PLA Navy’s Shandong carrier, tailed the patrol plane for forty minutes on Saturday and eighty minutes on Sunday, shadowing its every turn before slicing across its nose. Japan lodged an immediate protest, calling the manoeuvre an “abnormal approach” that risked collision. Beijing, for its part, insisted the intercept was “legal and professional,” accusing Japan of provocative surveillance near a live-fire exercise. (english.kyodonews.net, globaltimes.cn)
The drama unfolded in international airspace east of Iwo Jima—hallowed ground for Japanese and American Marines alike, now an increasingly crowded arena for Chinese carrier aviation. For the first time, both of China’s active flattops, the Shandong and the Liaoning, were spotted operating simultaneously in the Pacific, rehearsing the kind of twin-deck choreography Beijing hopes will stretch its reach beyond the first island chain. Their presence is a statement: the PLA Navy is no longer tied to home waters. (navalnews.com)
For Japan, the timing could hardly be worse. Tokyo has just pledged a record defence budget, adding long-range missiles and early-warning radars to counter an assertive neighbour. Close-in intercepts are not new—Chinese fighters buzzed Japanese aircraft in 2014 and 2022—but doing so from a carrier changes the calculus. It signals the fighter can loiter, refuel, and sortie again without land-base constraints, eroding the buffer Japan once relied on. (english.kyodonews.net)
Beijing’s narrative paints a different picture: Chinese ships and jets were conducting “routine training,” while Japanese and, by implication, allied aircraft probed too close for comfort. Domestic media cast the P-3C’s patrol as a spy mission, glossing over the fact that maritime patrols in international airspace are legal under the very conventions China cites when challenging U.S. reconnaissance flights in the South China Sea. The duel of statements shows how each capital tailors the same footage for rival audiences—Tokyo emphasising danger, Beijing projecting normalcy. (globaltimes.cn)
Yet physics, not politics, makes these intercepts hair-raising. A P-3C cruises around 350 km/h; a J-15 can exceed 900 km/h on approach. At forty-five metres, closure rates leave crews seconds to react. The margin for error shrinks further when sea spray clutters radar and carrier flight decks juggle dozens of sorties. One misread signal officer, one software glitch in an ageing avionics suite, and a near-miss morphs into an international crisis.
Strategically, the incident underscores how quickly the Pacific chessboard is tilting toward carrier rivalry. Japan’s own Izumo-class helicopter destroyers are being refitted to launch F-35Bs, while the U.S. Navy keeps a strike group on rotational patrol nearby. Add Australia’s upcoming submarines and the Philippines’ new basing deal, and you have a thicket of overlapping patrol lines, any of which could spark the next close-pass headline.
Tokyo and Beijing maintain a defence hotline, activated for the first time last year. Officials say it remained silent during the weekend encounter. That silence should worry both sides. Hotlines are only useful if commanders trust them enough to pick up on a fraught Saturday morning—precisely when junior pilots make snap decisions that senior diplomats later regret.
The world will see more carrier flight ops near Japan’s outer islands as Beijing flexes and Tokyo monitors. Preventing another 45-metre brush, or something even closer, will hinge on simple discipline: keep talking, fly predictable patterns, and remember that one careless burst of afterburner can undo months of patient diplomacy. In crowded skies, restraint is the rarest—and most precious—element of air superiority.
