Japan has sharpened its criticism of what it sees as an increasingly belligerent effort by China to assert territorial claims in disputed Asian waters, saying Beijing was using “force” in a “risky” effort to change maritime boundaries.

In the first national defence white paper issued under Shinzo Abe, the conservative prime minister who won power in December, the defence ministry said: “China has attempted to change the status quo by force based on its own assertion, which is incompatible with the existing order of international law.”

Mr Abe has previously used similar language to describe China’s dispatch of ships and aircraft to areas near the Senkaku Islands, a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that is administered by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing, which calls them the Diaoyu.