Chinese Coast Guard vessels have sailed through the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands amid rising tensions between the two countries over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments about Taiwan.

The China Coast Guard said in a statement on Sunday that it “conducted patrols” around the Senkaku Islands, which Beijing claims as its own and refers to as the Diaoyu Islands.

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“China Coast Guard vessel 1307 formation conducted patrols within the territorial waters of the Diaoyu Islands. This was a lawful patrol operation conducted by the China Coast Guard to uphold its rights and interests,” the statement said.

The deployment around the disputed islands comes as tensions rise in China over comments by the nationalist Takaichi, who suggested last week that Japan would respond militarily to a Chinese attack on the self-governed island of Taiwan.

China, which claims Taiwan as an integral part of its territory, responded angrily, with its consul general in Osaka stating that the “dirty head that sticks itself out must be cut off”.

That statement in turn prompted a formal diplomatic complaint from Tokyo.

China then summoned the Japanese ambassador and issued a travel warning on Friday advising its citizens to avoid travelling to Japan.

Three Chinese airlines said on Saturday that tickets to Japan could be refunded or changed for free.

Taiwan was once the redoubt of nationalist strongman Chiang Kai-shek, a close ally of the United States who fled to Taiwan after being defeated by communist forces on the Chinese mainland in 1949. But the island has since developed its own democratic culture and political system, and has chafed against threats of military action by Beijing.

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Taiwanese authorities maintain that only the people of the island should decide their future, but Beijing has never ruled out the use of force to seize control of the territory.

Japanese leaders have previously avoided publicly mentioning Taiwan when discussing such scenarios, declining to take an official stance on the dispute beyond saying it must be resolved peacefully, a stance known as “strategic ambiguity”.