US President Barack Obama’s administration on Friday accused a Chinese fighter jet of conducting a “dangerous intercept” of a US Navy surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft off the coast of China in international airspace — the fourth such incident since March.
Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby said Washington protested to the Chinese military through diplomatic channels, calling the fighter pilot’s actions “unsafe and unprofessional.”
US officials said this is at least the second formal complaint US diplomats have filed with the Chinese over these military actions in recent months.
Photo: AFP
At a news briefing at Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, US Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes called the intercept “a deeply concerning provocation” and suggested it could set back efforts to improve relations.
“What we’ve encouraged is constructive military-to-military ties with China and this kind of action clearly violates the spirit of that engagement,” Rhodes told reporters.
US officials said it appears that the same Chinese military unit out of a base on Hainan Island was responsible for similar aggressive “close intercepts” in March, April and May. The officials refused to provide any details of the previous incidents, but said the US filed a similar formal complaint with the Chinese in May.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the previous incidents publicly.
Kirby said the maneuvering by the Chinese jet on Tuesday posed a risk to the safety of the US air crew, was “inconsistent with customary international law” and complicates efforts to improve military-to-military relations, which are often strained.
Kirby said the Chinese jet made several close passes by the US Navy P-8 Poseidon plane, coming within 9m of it at one point. He said the Chinese jet did a “barrel roll” maneuver over the top of the Poseidon at one point and also passed across the nose of the navy plane, exposing the belly of the fighter in a way apparently designed to show that it was armed.
Kirby said it happened about 217km east of China’s Hainan Island.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
Japan and the Philippines yesterday signed a defense pact that would allow the tax-free provision of ammunition, fuel, food and other necessities when their forces stage joint training to boost deterrence against China’s growing aggression in the region and to bolster their preparation for natural disasters. Japan has faced increasing political, trade and security tensions with China, which was angered by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remark that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be a survival-threatening situation for Japan, triggering a military response. Japan and the Philippines have also had separate territorial conflicts with Beijing in the East and South China
RSS