China defends intercept of US spy aircraft
Print Edition
CHINA’S Ministry of National Defense has rejected US accusations that a Chinese fighter jet’s intercept of a US Navy surveillance aircraft off the southern Chinese coast was dangerous and blamed Washington for mounting large-scale and frequent close-in reconnaissance operations.
Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said the Chinese pilot conducted operations that were “professional and the Chinese jet kept a safe distance from the US planes.”
He called the US accusations “groundless” in a statement issued on Saturday night and said China was conducting “routine identification and verification” flights.
Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby gave a different account on Friday of the August 19 encounter about 220 kilometers east of China’s Hainan Island. He said the Chinese jet made several close passes by the Navy P-8 Poseidon plane, coming within 9 meters of it at one point.
Kirby said that included the Chinese jet doing a “barrel roll” maneuver over the top of the Poseidon — a modified Boeing 737 — and passing across the nose of the Navy plane apparently to show that it was armed. Kirby said the Chinese jet’s maneuvering posed a risk to the safety of the US air crew and was “inconsistent with customary international law.”
The Chinese statement also said that a Navy P-3 Orion, an anti-submarine and surveillance aircraft, flew alongside the Poseidon. The Pentagon did not mention the second aircraft.
In April 2001, an intercept of a US EP-3E spy plane by a Chinese F-8 fighter in the same area resulted in a collision that killed the Chinese pilot and forced the American plane to make an emergency landing at a base on Hainan.
The 24 US air crew members were held for 11 days until Washington apologized for the incident, which soured US-Chinese relations in the early days of President George W. Bush’s first administration.
In the latest encounter, Yang blamed “the large-scale and highly frequent close-in reconnaissance by the US against China” as “the root cause of accidents endangering the sea and air military security between China and the United States.”
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