The Chinese warships that sail close to the Japanese island of Amami-Oshima make Naruhito Kamada nervous. A stocky former sumo wrestler, the mayor of this small city here worries there might be a collision one day in the narrow channel that connects the East China Sea with the Pacific Ocean. “I feel a sense of crisis,” Kamada said in an interview, his office a few hundred yards from the docks where fishing boats and whale-watching expeditions put out to sea. Japanese surveillance has recorded Chinese destroyers passing through the strait near Amami-Oshima at least 10 times this year. That follows zero such transits in 2025 and is on pace to exceed the 15 recorded in 2024. “It’s a provocation for sure,” said Takuya Matsuda, an international security scholar at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. Japan is facing what officials describe as the most severe security environment since World War II. China is flexing its growing military might, pressing its maritime claims across eastern Asia and pushing deeper into the Western Pacific, where the U.S. has held sway for years.

Full report : Chinese Warships Are Cruising Too Close for Comfort Off Japan’s Shores.