Japan’s Defense Ministry has unveiled a proposal to place surveillance radar on Kita-Daito, an island 225 miles southeast of Okinawa. (Okinawa Convention and Visitors Bureau)

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — Japan’s Defense Ministry wants to place surveillance radar on a tiny island off Okinawa’s east coast to monitor Chinese ships and aircraft passing through nearby waterways.

Ministry representatives unveiled their plans Thursday to residents of Kita-Daito Island, 225 miles southeast of Okinawa, at the island’s personnel exchange center, according to a ministry document posted on the village’s website the next day.

Under the proposal, the ministry would purchase two parcels of village land in the island’s north and south for mobile surveillance radar, including a data exchange system, antennas and radio infrastructure, according to the document. Approximately 30 Japan Self-Defense Forces troops would be assigned to the island to operate and maintain the equipment.

“Chinese activities in the airspace and sea around our nation are getting active rapidly and are escalating,” the document states. “The surveillance of aircraft that pass through the Miyako Strait and Bashi Channel is an urgent task.”

The strait, an international waterway, separates Okinawa and Miyako Island 175 miles to the southwest; the channel separates Taiwan and the Philippines.

Japan has 28 surveillance radar sites around the country and the Kita-Daito facilities would be used to address gaps in that coverage, according to the ministry document.

The two parcels total about 20 acres, the document said. The radar and troops will be based on the northern parcel while radio-wave measuring devices and towers would be constructed in the south.

The facilities would help counter “new fighting methods” and prevent China from changing the status quo “by force,” according to the document.

Kita-Daito, at just over 7 square miles, is the easternmost island in the Ryukyu chain. It is known for its sheer cliffs and the fact that visitors and cargo must be lifted onto the island by crane.

The plan is not yet approved, Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada told reporters July 14 at a press conference in Tokyo.

“We think that conducting vigilance and surveillance regularly in the airspace of the Pacific Ocean side, which was a blind spot, is an extremely important task for us,” he said.

There is no timeline yet for approval of the proposal. A spokesman from the Okinawa Defense Bureau, which represents the ministry on Okinawa, did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday.

A Kita-Daito village spokesman was unavailable for comment.

China in recent years has stepped up provocative activities in the East and South China Seas. Its coast guard frequently enters seas claimed by Japan around the disputed Senkaku chain, a small group of uninhabited rocks and islets northeast of Taiwan. Chinese naval vessels frequently traverse the Miyako Strait for carrier landing drills.

Japanese officials expect these activities to increase in the Sea of Japan and Pacific in the years to come, the document said.