Chinese Destroyers Lead Exercises Near Japan Following Tokyo’s Taiwan Strait ‘Provocation’

The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy’s Eastern Theater Command has organised a formation of ships to transit the Yokoate Waterway and conduct routine training exercises in the Western Pacific, shortly following the conclusion of a  joint combat readiness patrol in the East China Sea. The waterway is a strategic maritime passage located between Japan's Amami Oshima and Yokoate Island in the Ryukyu Islands, and represents a key transit point for vessels navigating between the East China Sea and the Western Pacific Ocean. The exercises have been assessed to be a response to the Japan Maritime Self Defence Force’s deployment of the Murasame class destroyer JS Ikazuchi to transit the Taiwan Strait on April 17, which Beijing referred to as “a deliberate provocation.”

Commenting on the latest exercises, local analysts speaking to state media observed: "The Eastern Theater Command’s countermeasures are not directed at normal navigation, but at Japan’s deliberate provocative actions that threaten China’s sovereignty and security and send wrong signals to 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces.” Tensions between Tokyo and Beijing have been high since Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, in November 2025 threatened to intervene militarily in the ongoing conflict between the People’s Republic of China on the Chinese mainland, and the Republic of China based on Taiwan, which have for decades remained in a state of civil war. The deployment of the PLA Navy’s aircraft carrier Liaoning to sail through the Taiwan Strait on April 20 has also been widely interpreted as a response to the latest Japanese operations.

Exercises are being led by the Type 052D class destroyer Baotou, with state midst referred to type warship type as the Navy’s “mainstay guided-missile destroyer, excelling in air defence, anti-ship, and anti-submarine warfare.” The Type 052D has been produced in multiple sub-variants, including one informally referred to as the Type 052DL which has an flight deck that appears to be four metres longer, and another informally referred to as the Type 052DG which integrates reconfigured main mast to accommodate new electronic warfare and communication antennae. The ships are in production on a scale exceeding those of the next several destroyer types being built across the world combined, with over 35 estimated to currently be in service. The Baotou has been referred to by local sources as an “improved Type 052D class destroyer” by local sources. The Eastern Theatre Command’s destroyer fleet facing Japan is particularly formidable, and includes four of the Navy’s ten Type 055 class destroyers which are heavier more capable counterparts to the Type 052D class.