China air force again holds drills in Western Pacific
China's air force said on Friday it had flown bombers and other jets through a strait between Japanese islands on their way to drills in the Western Pacific, and had carried out a patrol in China's air identification zone in the East China Sea.
"This year the air force has four times carried out drills in the Western Pacific, raising the air force's ability to fight over long distances far out at sea," it said in a statement on its official microblog.
China's ties with Japan have been strained by a longstanding territorial dispute over a string of islets in the East China Sea, known in China as the Diaoyu and in Japan as the Senkaku.
