Around 5:00 p.m. on June 19th (Sunday), the supply vessel Hamana of the Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) observed a Dongdiao-class intelligence collection vessel of the Chinese Navy sailing eastward down waters outside of the contiguous zone at the south of the Senkaku Islands.
The MSDF observed the Chinese vessel sailing back and forth several times between east and west until around 2:00 p.m., on June 20th (Monday).
Subsequently, the MSDF observed the Chinese vessel sailing northward down waters outside the contiguous zone at the west of Uotsuri Island (Okinawa Prefecture).
The Chinese vessel was the identical one that had sailed down Japanese territorial waters of west of Kuchinoerabu Island (Kagoshima Prefecture) on June 15th (Wednesday) and the Japanese contiguous zone at the north of Kitadaito Island (Okinawa Prefecture) on June 16th (Thursday).
Earlier Japanese P-3C patrol aircraft spotted the Dongdiao-class intelligence vessel sailing in territorial waters to the west of Kuchinoerabu Island at around 3:30 am (1830 GMT Tuesday), Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshige Seko told reporters.
