Chinese warships have passed for the first time through the narrow strait that divides northern Japan and Russia, Japan’s defence ministry said yesterday.

The five ships, including a guided-missile destroyer, travelled in international waters through the La Pérouse Strait yesterday morning, the ministry said. The vessels appeared to be returning to China after a week-long military exercise with the Russian navy that took place in the Sea of Japan and was seen as a message of defiance directed at Japan and the US.

Ahead of the exercises, Chinese media quoted Yin Zhuo, a retired admiral who advises Chinese politicians, as saying that such manoeuvres in the Sea of Japan would “have a certain level of threat to Japan, which has a dispute with China over the Diaoyu Islands and one with Russia over the Northern Territories”.