Pentagon says Chinese jet came ‘aggressively close’ to US aircraft

Washington, May 31

A Chinese fighter jet carried out an “unnecessarily aggressive” manoeuver near a US military plane over the South China Sea in international airspace, the US has said.

The US military command responsible for the Indo-Pacific said the maneuver by a Chinese J-16 aircraft occurred last week and forced the US RC-135 plane to fly through its wake turbulence.

“The United States will continue to fly, sail, and operate — safely and responsibly — wherever international law allows,” it said in a statement.

A video showed a fighter jet passing in front of the US plane’s nose and the cockpit of the RC-135 shaking in the turbulence.

The spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, did not comment on the specifics, but said that for a long time, the US had “frequently deployed aircraft and vessels for close-in reconnaissance on China, which poses a serious danger to China’s national security”. “China urges the US to stop such dangerous provocations, and stop blaming China,” Liu said.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea, where several other countries have rival claims. — Reuters

Will keep safeguarding sovereignty: Beijing

• Chinese Foreign Ministry said China would keep taking measures necessary to protect its sovereignty
• “US must immediately stop these provocations,” it said
• Military-to-military contacts between Beijing and Washington have all but evaporated in recent years
• China says US is responsible for breakdown in relations

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