China’s military involved in over 180 ‘coercive and risky’ incidents against US since 2021: Pentagon

Declassified footage shows ‘reckless manoeuvres’ by PLA jets approaching lawfully operating US assets, says official overseeing Indo-Pacific security
Beijing trying to ‘intimidate and coerce’ members of international community to give up their rights, he adds

US-China relations

Khushboo Razdanin New York

Published: 6:10am, 18 Oct 2023

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China’s military over the last two years has engaged in more than 180 incidents of “coercive and risky operational behaviour” against US assets acting lawfully in international airspace over the East and South China seas, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

Declassified images and videos of “reckless manoeuvres” released by the US Defence Department showed Chinese jets discharging chaff or shooting off flares while approaching very near American aircraft at high speeds.

Since autumn 2021, there were nearly 300 instances of “risky intercepts” involving the PLA and aircraft belonging to American allies and partners, according to Ely Ratner, US assistant secretary of defence for Indo-Pacific security.

“Photos from the incident show a PLA fighter jet crossing in front of a lawfully operating US asset at a distance of just 100 yards,” Ratner said, describing an encounter from January.

A still from Pentagon video footage shows a US warplane being intercepted by a Chinese aircraft over the Pacific Ocean in May 2022. Photo: US Department of Defence via AP

“This is at speeds of hundreds of miles an hour and at an altitude of tens of thousands of feet.”

Beijing was trying to “intimidate and coerce” members of the international community into “giving up their rights under international law”, thus putting at risk the lives of service members of the US, its allies and partners as well as China’s own operators, said Ratner.

“Our forces have helped sustain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific for decades,” he added. “And we will continue to do so every day.”

US Indo-Pacific Command chief John Aquilino, speaking at the same Pentagon briefing, voiced alarm over the “potential for accidents” and “miscalculation”.

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Their concerns were conveyed just weeks before the US was expected to send a senior official to China’s top annual security forum in Beijing, slated for October 29 to 31.

The invitation has been perceived as an indication of normalised security cooperation after Beijing cut off military communication with Washington following a visit to Taiwan by former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in August last year.

China regards Taiwan as an inalienable part of its territory to be eventually reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. While the US adheres to a one-China policy, it is legally bound to defend the self-ruled island against “coercion”.

In May, Li Shangfu, China’s now-missing defence minister, declined to meet his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin, at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

A Pentagon image shows an intercept of a US warplane by a Chinese aircraft over the Pacific Ocean in June 2022. Photo: US Department of Defence via AP

Weeks later, the Pentagon released another video of a Chinese fighter jet allegedly conducting an “unnecessarily aggressive manoeuvre” during an intercept of a US spy plane in international airspace over the South China Sea.

The Chinese military responded to the video by claiming the US aircraft had “deliberately intruded” into China’s training area.

Ratner on Tuesday said the US would continue to seek open lines of military-to-military communication with the PLA at multiple levels, including at the most senior “because we believe these channels are crucial for preventing competition from inadvertently veering into conflict”.

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Asked whether Beijing would take advantage of the US focusing on events in the Middle East and consider invading Taiwan, Aquilino said that “historically, certainly all nations look at what’s going on in the geopolitical space, in the military space, and I would expect there to be lessons learned”.

In stating that his top priority was to prevent conflict in the Indo-Pacific, the navy admiral added: “My forces are ready today”.