A Chinese fighter jet came within 10 feet of a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber over the South China Sea this week during a nighttime maneuver that nearly caused a collision, the U.S. military said Thursday.
The pilot of the J-11 aircraft that flew close to the B-52 in international airspace on Tuesday evening “flew in an unsafe and unprofessional manner” and at “uncontrolled excessive speed,” the US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement .
The US military also released a grainy black-and-white video that it said showed the encounter. The aerial clip, apparently filmed from inside the bomber, appears to show the plane coming dangerously close. The New York Times has not independently verified the video.
The statement and video were released on the same day that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in the United States for meetings with American officials — including Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser – and at a time of tension between the two countries over national security, economic competition and other issues.
Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Friday that “US military aircraft have flown thousands of kilometers to show off their force on China’s doorstep, which is the main cause of the security risks at sea and in the air. ”
“It is also not conducive to regional peace and stability,” she added at a regular news briefing in Beijing. “China will continue to take decisive measures to safeguard the security of national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Chinese officials have previously portrayed Chinese air intercepts of U.S. aircraft as reasonable responses to foreign military patrols that threaten the country’s security.
In June, then-Chinese Defense Minister General Li Shangfu downplayed an episode in which a U.S. Navy ship slowed to avoid a possible collision with a Chinese Navy ship that had crossed its path while transiting the China-Taiwan Strait . , the self-governed island that Beijing claims as its own.
At a conference in Singapore in June, General Li said the best way to avoid an accident is for countries outside the region, such as the United States, to leave and “mind their own business.”
But the Indo-Pacific Command’s statement on Thursday said the latest near miss was part of a “dangerous pattern of coercive and risky operational behavior” by Chinese military aircraft against US aircraft in international airspace over both southern China Sea like the East China Sea. , which separates China from Japan.
“The U.S. will continue to fly, sail and operate – safely and responsibly – wherever international law allows,” the report said.
The Pentagon told Congress in a report this month that it had recorded more than 180 interceptions of U.S. aircraft by Chinese forces in the Asia-Pacific region since the fall of 2021 — more than in the previous decade. Some of those interceptions took place in the South China Sea.
China claims 90 percent of the South China Sea, including waters thousands of miles from the Chinese mainland. It has roiled much of Asia and the United States over the past decade by asserting ever-increasing control over the sea, in part by building and fortifying outposts and airstrips on disputed island chains.
Claire Fu research contributed.