The Diplomat reported (April 10) that Japan Air Self Defence Force’s (JASDF) fighter jets scrambled 675 times in 2019 to intercept PLA AF and PLAN’s aircraft. The numbers are from April 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020, and announced by Japan’s Ministry of Defence. There is an increase of 5.8 per cent than the previous year, and this marks the second-highest responses since 1958. The peak year for JASDF scrambles against foreign military aircraft remains 2016 with 1,168 reported sorties. During the fiscal year 2019, the JASDF also scrambled its fighter jets 268 times to intercept Russian military aircraft. The JASDF deploys Mitsubishi F-15J/Kai all-weather air superiority fighters, F-2 multirole fighter jets, a Mitsubishi license-produced variant of Lockheed Martin’s F-16, and F-4EJ/RF-4 Phantom II fighter aircraft for interception missions.
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