Japan has scrambled fighter jets after a Chinese military aircraft flew through international airspace near its southern islands.

Chinese military plane flies near southern Japanese islands.

Japan's Defense Ministry said a Chinese Y-8 airborne early warning plane flew through airspace between Okinawa prefecture's main island and the smaller Miyako island in southern Japan out over the Pacific at around noon and later took the same route back over the East China Sea.

Japan scrambled fighter jets in response to the flight. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga admitted that the aircraft flew over international waters, but said the nation was on alert. Tensions between China and Japan escalated last September since Japan's so-called purchase of the Diaoyu Islands.

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