BEIJING, June 12 (Reuters) - China deployed a reconnaissance aircraft over Pacific waters east of Taiwan last week that Chinese media said monitored and gathered intelligence on an exercise involving the navies of the United States, Japan, France and Canada. The islands separate the East China Sea from the Philippine Sea, and dot the West Pacific between Japan and Taiwan, which China claims as its territory. The Japanese defence ministry reported a sighting of a Y-9 reconnaissance variant in the Pacific on Thursday. A spokesperson for the Japanese ministry said on Monday it was analysing a piece of equipment attached to the undercarriage of the Y-9 variant that had not been seen before. Days before the quadrilateral exercise, the coast guards of the Philippines, United States and Japan held their first trilateral exercise off the coast of a western Philippine province.

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Persons: USS Nimitz, Ronald Reagan, Albee Zhang, Ryan Woo, Tim Kelly, Gerry Doyle, Robeert Organizations: Global Times, U.S, USS, U.S ., U.S . 7th Fleet, Military, South China, Thomson Locations: BEIJING, China, Taiwan, United States, Japan, France, Canada, Ryukyu, Philippine, Beijing, East, Pacific, U.S, South, Philippines, Tokyo