Following the incident, the US stated that it would continue to fly and operate wherever international law allows.
Washington:
The United States said Tuesday that a Chinese fighter jet carried out “unnecessarily aggressive” maneuvers near a US military aircraft over the South China Sea in international airspace.
In a statement, the United States military command responsible for the Indo-Pacific said Chinese J-16 aircraft maneuvered last week and forced a US RC-135 aircraft to fly through its turbulence.
“The United States will continue to fly, sail, and operate safely and responsibly wherever international law allows,” the statement said.
#USINDOPACOM release statement #PRC Non-Commercial Interception: “We expect all countries in the Indo-Pacific region to use international airspace safely and in accordance with international law.”
Read more⬇️https://t.co/jeAEg1lHXzpic.twitter.com/AvPKRZHCZB
– US Indo-Pacific Command (@INDOPACOM) May 30, 2023
A video showed a fighter jet passing in front of the nose of the American plane and the RC-135’s cockpit shaking in the turbulence.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. China has said before that sending ships and aircraft by the US to the South China Sea is not good for peace.
Such interceptions happen only occasionally. In December, a Chinese military aircraft came within 10 feet (3 m) of a US Air Force aircraft and forced it to dodge to avoid a collision in international airspace.
Following the encounter the United States called a recent trend of increasingly dangerous behavior by Chinese military aircraft.
The incident took place before China declined US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s request to meet on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue Asian Security Summit in Singapore this week.
A senior US defense official said on condition of anonymity that since 2021, China has not responded or granted more than a dozen requests to speak with the Pentagon.
Relations between China and the United States have been strained, with friction between the world’s two biggest economies over everything from Taiwan’s human rights record to its military activity in the South China Sea.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)