The Japanese government reported that Chinese government ships entered the contiguous zone on a record 353 days in 2024.
Back on April 29, 2025, I authored a piece for The National Interest titled “Is Japan Sending Warships to Cambodia to Spy on the Chinese Navy?” wherein I discussed how the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) was sending two of its minesweepers to the Ream naval base in Cambodia, creating a potential opportunity for the Japanese Navy personnel to gather some convenient intelligence on the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).
Well, now China may be responding in kind: Beijing has sent some designated spy ships to spy on Japan.
PLAN Type 815A Spy Ships Caught In the Act
The initial inspiration for this article came from a Newsweek article by Ryan Chan: “US Ally Intercepts Chinese Spy Ships Near Coast.” To wit:
“The Japanese Defense Ministry reported on Wednesday that the Chinese Type 815A spy ship CNS Yuhengxing, which has the hull number 798, sailed from the Philippine Sea to the East China Sea via the Miyako Strait—located in Japan’s southwestern waters—on Sunday … The Yuhengxing commenced its deployment in the Philippine Sea on April 12, when it was tracked passing through the waters between two of Japan’s southwestern islands, Yokoate-jima and Amami Oshima, according to a map provided by the Japanese Defense Ministry … Meanwhile, the CNS Kaiyangxing, which is a sister ship of the Yuhengxing with the hull number 796, sailed northward through the waterway between Taiwan and Japan’s island of Yonaguni from Sunday to Monday, heading from the Philippine Sea to the East China Sea … The Japanese navy was dispatched to monitor the Chinese spy ships, Tokyo’s defense ministry added, though the exact missions of the Yuhengxing and the Kaiyangxing remain unclear.”
The two PLAN spy ships had also been operating in the Philippine Sea, consistent with Beijing’s pattern of belligerence against the Philippines. During that time, the American aircraft carrier USS Nimitz was also operating in the region, providing what the U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet termed “presence and combat-ready forces to the theater.”
Type 815A Spy Ship History and Specifications
A total of four Type 815A vessels were commissioned from 2017 to 2018. One of the features that distinguishes them from earlier variants of the Type 815 (the original was commissioned in 1999) is the radome atop the pilothouse, which is a cylinder with a flat top surface; earlier versions had a semispherical radome.
Tech specs and vital stats, courtesy of GlobalSecurity:
- Displacement: 6,000 tons
- Hull Length: 130 meters
- Width: 16.4 meters
- Draught: 6.5 meters
- Max Speed: 20 knots
- Armament: Double-mounted 25mm and 37mm guns
Additional Developments
Unsurprisingly, the story doesn’t end there. Not to be outdone by their PLAN counterparts, the Chinese Coast Guard, as reported on May 15 by Micah McCartney, sent four of its cutters “one after the other” into territorial waters of the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea in a so-called “rights-protection patrol.” The cutters lingered in the zone for about two hours until departing in the wake of broadcast radio warnings from the Japan Coast Guard.
This marked the first China coast guard “intrusion” into the Senkaku territorial waters (defined in international legalese terms as waters extending 12 nautical miles off the coastline) since March 7. Meanwhile, according to the Japanese government, Chinese government ships entered the contiguous zone—an area that extends 12 nautical miles beyond territorial waters—on a record 353 days in 2024.
About the Author: Christian D. Orr
Christian D. Orr was previously a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ) and 19FortyFive. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.
Image: 海上自衛隊, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
