(WSJ) China’s military has flexed its growing capacity to challenge the U.S. presence in the Asia-Pacific in recent weeks, intercepting an American spy plane in what Washington criticized as a risky manner and sending an aircraft carrier in the direction of Guam.
On Thursday, the U.S. military said a Chinese jet fighter conducted an unsafe maneuver while intercepting a U.S. Air Force RC-135 in international airspace over the South China Sea on Dec. 21. The J-11 fighter, operated by a Chinese navy pilot, flew “in front of and within 20 feet of the nose” of the RC-135, forcing the reconnaissance plane to “take evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision,” the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said.
On Wednesday, Japan’s Defense Ministry reported sighting Chinese warships—led by the aircraft carrier Liaoning—operating over the past week or so in Western Pacific waters within relative proximity of Guam, where the U.S. maintains sizable naval and air forces. The ministry didn’t give precise coordinates but included a map with approximate locations that suggested the Liaoning and its escorts had sailed within 500 miles of Guam between Dec. 23 and 25.
A nationalistic Chinese Communist Party-run tabloid, Global Times, published an English-language report saying that the naval maneuvers marked the first time the Liaoning carrier battle group had approached Guam. The report said the Liaoning group demonstrated China’s ability to resist potential U.S. attempts to interfere militarily in Taiwan, a democratically self-governed island that Beijing claims as its territory.
China’s Defense Ministry and the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
In its statement about the Dec. 21 intercept by the Chinese jet, the Indo-Pacific Command said the American RC-135 was “lawfully conducting routine operations over the South China Sea,” without saying precisely where the encounter took place. Its statement was accompanied by video footage, apparently shot from the RC-135’s cockpit, showing a close encounter with a Chinese fighter carrying what appeared to be air-to-air missiles.
The footage shows the J-11 flying slightly ahead and to the left of the RC-135, with the distance between them narrowing until the American plane seemed to maneuver away.
The encounter, as the U.S. described it, was “simply too close for comfort,” said Collin Koh, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. Such a small margin, he said, “raises the risk of physical contact that could result in the loss of either or both aircraft.”
The Indo-Pacific Command said U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific will “continue to fly, sail and operate at sea and in international airspace with due regard for the safety of all vessels and aircraft under international law.”
The U.S. military from time to time has reported what it calls “unsafe encounters” with the People’s Liberation Army, often in the South and East China Seas, where Beijing asserts sovereignty claims that overlap with those of neighboring Asian governments.
“We’ve seen a sharp increase in the number of dangerous PLA intercepts of U.S. and allied forces—including Canadian aircraft—that were operating lawfully in international airspace over the South and East China Seas,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a November speech.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin pushed back during a news briefing in Beijing on Friday, saying “provocative and dangerous acts by the U.S. have been the root cause of maritime security issues.”
In the South China Sea, whose resource-rich waters are crossed by vital shipping lanes, Chinese claims overlap with those of six governments, including five Southeast Asian countries. Washington, which doesn’t have claims in these waters, has generally called on rival claimants to resolve disputes peacefully and in accordance with international law.
American military forces often operate in the area, gathering intelligence on Chinese counterparts and conducting what the U.S. calls “freedom of navigation” operations, meant to challenge what it deems excessive sovereignty claims by China.
Beijing says it respects freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, but often raises objections to American military operations in the area, particularly those that come close to China’s southern island province of Hainan and other Chinese-controlled features. The PLA routinely intercepts foreign military aircraft and vessels deemed to stray too near.
One such encounter turned deadly in 2001, when a Chinese jet fighter collided with a U.S. surveillance plane over the South China Sea. The Chinese pilot died while the American plane made an emergency landing on Hainan, sparking a diplomatic crisis.
The U.S. and China have tried to mitigate the risks of accidental clashes, signing a memorandum of understanding in 2014 on safety guidelines for aerial and maritime encounters between their militaries, though channels of communication have narrowed as tensions between the two superpowers have risen.
Source: Wall Street Journal by Chun Han Wong Updated Dec. 30, 2022 6:14 am ET
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