Chinese media warn US over warplane interception

{China’s state-run media warned Washington on Monday that Beijing could treat its surveillance flights as an “act of hostility”, after accusations a Chinese fighter jet flew dangerously close to a US military aircraft.}

US Rear Admiral John Kirby said Friday the armed Chinese warplane came close to the American P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft on three occasions, at times less than 30 feet (nine metres) away, in what he called a “very dangerous” intercept.

China’s defence ministry spokesman Yang Yujun called the allegations “totally groundless” in a statement cited by the official news agency Xinhua.

The incident took place 220 kilometres (135 miles) off China’s Hainan island, over an area the US insists is international waters but Beijing regards as part of its territory.

The incident has echoes of a major incident in April 2001, when a Chinese fighter jet collided with a US Navy EP-3 spy plane around 110 kilometres off Hainan.

The Global Times — which is owned by the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, and often takes a nationalist tone — lashed out in an editorial at US surveillance “in the coastal waters and airspace of China”.

AFP