After the incident, the US said it will continue to fly and operate where international law allows.
Washington:
A Chinese fighter jet performed an “unnecessarily aggressive” maneuver near a US military aircraft over the South China Sea in international airspace, the United States said on Tuesday.
In a statement, the US military command responsible for the Indo-Pacific said the Chinese J-16 aircraft performed the maneuver last week and forced the US RC-135 aircraft to fly through its wake turbulence.
“The United States will continue to fly, sail and operate safely and responsibly where international law permits,” the statement said.
#USINDOPACOM Statement on #PRC Unprofessional Intercept: “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
— U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (@INDOPACOM) May 30, 2023
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 Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In the past, China has said it is not good for peace if the United States sends ships and planes to the South China Sea.
Such interceptions happen occasionally. In December, a Chinese military plane came within 10 feet of a U.S. Air Force plane, forcing it to perform evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision in international airspace.
The meeting followed what the United States calls a recent trend of increasingly dangerous behavior by Chinese military aircraft.
The incident came before China turned down a request from US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to meet on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue Asian Security Summit in Singapore this week.
A senior US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said China had rejected or failed to respond to more than a dozen requests to talk to the Pentagon since 2021.
Relations between China and the United States are tense, with friction between the world’s two largest economies over everything from Taiwan and China’s human rights record to its military activities in the South China Sea.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)