China's Ministry of National Defense Wednesday urged Japan to stop frequent surveillance of China's land and naval forces, saying it undermines China's national security interests.

China Wednesday called on Japan to stop scrambling fighters to intercept Chinese planes, said Yang Yujun, spokesperson of the Ministry of National Defense.

China called on Japan to stop scrambling fighters to intercept Chinese planes, warning that this was the cause of air and maritime safety problems and had severely disturbed military drills, said Ministry spokesperson Yang Yujun at the ministry's regular press conference.

Yang said that the number of Japanese jets approaching Chinese coastal waters increased 44 percent from January to September compared with the same period last year.

"It has endangered the safety of Chinese fighters and is causing air and maritime safety problems. We have sufficient evidence of this," he said, urging the Japanese side to take a responsible attitude and effective measures to avoid any possible accidents.

As a sign of Japan's increased efforts to monitor China in the East China Sea area, Japan's Air Self-Defense Forces had scrambled 83 times in the first half of the year to check out military aircraft from China, more than triple the number in the same period last year, Japanese figures showed

However, none of the Chinese aircraft entered Japanese air space and the conduct of the Chinese planes totally conformed to international law and practices, said Yang.

In another development, Yang denied that China's increasing activities in Africa violates the country's policy of non-interference in other nations' internal affairs at Wednesday's press conference.

Yang said China attaches great importance to cooperation with developing countries, including African nations.

"The Chinese military has been participating in African security affairs for years. It has taken part in 15 UN peacekeeping missions there and has dispatched a total of 15,000 peacekeeping officers and soldiers," Yang said.

As of Tuesday, the Chinese naval fleet has escorted a total of 4,228 ships in the waters of the Gulf of Aden off Somalia, said Yang.

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