The Air Self-Defense Force scrambled aircraft on Sunday as at least eight Chinese fighters and bombers — and possibly more than 40 — passed through a critical international entryway into the Western Pacific.

They used a legal but politically sensitive passage through Okinawa, apparently to send a message to Tokyo.

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Yun Sun, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, said Sunday’s flights were also a “demonstration of both Beijing’s capability and its will.”

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