A Chinese fighter jet intercepted a usa spy plane in worldwide airspace over the East China Sea in an “unsafe manner”, news reports said Wednesday, quoting United States defence officials.
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It is not known whether the spy plane had to take any evasive action or at what point the J-10 broke off from its maneuver, but officials said it never got closer than 100ft to the US aircraft.
Two Chinese jets conducted an “unsafe” interception of an American spy plane over the East China Sea on Tuesday, American military officials said, but the Pentagon downplayed the encounter and blamed it on shoddy piloting.
According to CNN, the incident has been confirmed by a number of officials in the U.S. Department of Defense, who characterize the intercept as “unsafe”, given that the Chinese jet flew within 100 feet (30 meters) of the RC-135 spy plane. However, it did not mention how close the Chinese fighter came to the USA plane. In the risky maneuver, a plane comes alongside another aircraft to executes a full 360-degree roll above it.
With Modi’s visit, New Delhi hopes there will be breakthroughs in many aspects, especially business and trade, security cooperation and nuclear issues, the article titled “India’s vision can not be realised by containing China” said. The US officials claimed aircraft from the carrier also tracked the Chinese submarine in a cat-and-mouse game.
China’s foreign and defense ministries did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
News of the intercept comes as Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew are in Beijing for the annual U.S.
Earlier this week, Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. would consider any Chinese establishment of an air defence zone over the South China Sea to be a “provocative and destabilising act”.
“We’ve seen positive behavior the last several months with China”. China said the jets were flying far enough from the USA plane.
The Pentagon determined that the May incident violated an agreement the two governments signed previous year. “Those are really over the course of time rare”.
China claims most of the waters, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year.
The Modi-Obama summit came just ahead of an worldwide tribunal ruling on the Philippines’ lawsuit against Chinese territorial claims in SCS.
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The large-scale exercises, which will focus on anti-submarine warfare and air-defence training, are likely to bolster ties between the three allies amid Beijing’s increased militarisation of the disputed South China Sea and its repeated incursions into Japanese territorial waters in the East China Sea, which houses the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, which are also claimed by China.
