The Chinese military on Friday flew a new electronic warfare drone near Japanese islands in the contested East China Sea, as Beijing continues to expand its air force activities in the region.

The Joint Staff of the Japanese Ministry of Defense regularly reports the movements of Chinese military aircraft within the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), an area of ​​international airspace where the tracking and identification of foreign aircraft is necessary for national security reasons.

In its report released on Friday, the Joint Staff Office said a Chinese BZK-005 flew over the Miyako Strait after crossing the East China Sea. The map accompanying the report shows the drone circling over the waters south of the Japanese island of Okinawa before returning to mainland China.

The strait is an important gateway for the Chinese navy and air force in the event of operations in the Philippine Sea and the wider Pacific. It forms the so-called first island chain, a choke point that starts from Japan in the north and extends to Taiwan and the Philippines in the south.

The BZK-005 is a medium to high altitude, long range reconnaissance drone capable of flying at 178 km/h and with a flight endurance of 40 hours. It is in service with the Chinese Air Force and Navy.

The drone spotted by the Japanese Air Force is a new electronic warfare variant of the BZK-005, known as the BZK-005D, according to a blog post by China Military Aviation. This variant features an electronic reconnaissance pod under the fuselage with blade antennas under the nose.

The Chinese Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a written request for comment.

The last time Japan reported a sighting of the BZK-005 was on August 28, 2023, when one of the drones flew over the waters between Taiwan and Japan’s westernmost island of Yonaguni. No blade antennas were visible under the drone’s nose.

The US military has informed its counterpart in Taiwan that China will station drones capable of conducting electronic warfare and jamming operations near the island, Taiwanese media reported on Sunday.

A report citing a source in the island’s military said foreign experts had assessed that China had equipped some of its military drones with a series of electronic warfare antennas and containers to strengthen the Chinese armed forces’ electronic warfare capabilities against Taiwanese weapons systems.

The Chinese military is deployed around Taiwan on a daily basis. Some of its ships and aircraft crossed the 67-mile-wide “Yonaguni Gap” between the Japanese island of Yonaguni and Taiwan, which worried the government in Tokyo. From the Japanese perspective, Yonaguni would be a frontline island if war broke out in the Taiwan Strait.

On Friday, Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force released a monthly report on fighter jet missions in July. In total, fighter jets were used 85 times to fend off approaching Chinese and Russian military aircraft, slightly more than the number in June (81).

Most of the alerts (72) were in response to Chinese aircraft approaching Japanese airspace, while the other 13 alerts were in response to Russian aircraft.

Most of the operations were carried out by the Southwestern Unit of the Japanese Air Force, which is responsible for securing the airspace around Japan’s southwestern islands on the border between the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea.