Last week, a Chinese military plane came within 3 meters of a US Air Force plane over the South China Sea in international airspace and forced it into collision avoidance maneuvers, the military said. of the US in a statement.
The incident, which involved a Chinese Navy J-11 fighter jet and a US Air Force RC-135 jet, occurred on December 21 but was not made public until Friday, Reuters reports. .
“We expect all countries in the Indo-Pacific region to use international airspace safely and in accordance with international law,” the US military wrote.
A disputed area
A US military spokesman said the Chinese plane came within 3 meters of the plane’s wing and 6 meters from its nose, prompting the US plane to take evasive maneuvers.
US military aircraft and ships regularly conduct surveillance operations in the region. China claims large tracts of the South China Sea that overlap with the exclusive economic zones of Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Billions of dollars in trade pass through this waterway each year, which is also home to rich fishing grounds and gas deposits.
In the past, China has said that sending US ships and planes to this area is not conducive to peace.
growing tensions
A spokesman for the US Army Indo-Pacific Command was quoted by the New York Times He said he had “seen an alarming increase in the number of dangerous air interceptions and sea engagements by (Chinese military) planes and ships.”
“Therefore, this latest incident reflects a disturbing trend of unsafe and unsafe practices by (the Chinese military), which is of great concern to the United States,” it added.
Despite the tensions between the United States and China, US military officials have long worked to keep the lines of communication open with their Chinese counterparts to mitigate the risk of conflagration or deal with potential mishaps, recalls Reuters.
Relations between China and the United States are tense, with friction between the world’s two largest economies over issues as diverse as Taiwan, China’s human rights record and its military activity in the South China Sea.
Source: BFM TV
