What was previously only rumored among insiders is now being made a public issue by the Pentagon: officials from the US Department of Defense are criticizing China for the sometimes critical intercept maneuvers and approaches of its fighter jets and warships and published corresponding image and video material.
US Department of Defense officials suspect “a centralized and concerted campaign” by Chinese agencies to “coerce a change in legitimate US operational activities” behind the “unsafe interception” of US and allied aircraft in international airspace, Ely Ratner, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told reporters in a briefing in the Pentagon press room. Ratner and Navy Admiral John Aquilino, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, spoke about the dangers that these Chinese “intercepts” pose to peace in the region and presented 15 exemplary cases of allegedly 180 such incidents in recent years. The Chinese interceptions are said not to be limited to the skies in international airspace. Ratner said this was only part of a broader pattern of Chinese People’s Liberation Army behavior “throughout the region and in all areas”. According to him, the “harassment” of US and allied warships by Chinese ships in the waters of the East China Sea in the South China Sea has also recently increased significantly. “We are also hearing similar things from our Indian partners on land,” Ratner continues. He suspects that this is part of “a much broader picture”.
Ratner also gave an outlook on some information from the forthcoming Chinese Military Power Report, according to which Chinese fighter aircraft are increasingly engaging in risky operational behavior. “Since the fall of 2021, we’ve seen more than 180 such incidents – that’s more incidents in the past two years than in the entire decade before that,” Ratner said. “That’s a total of nearly 200 cases where PLA operators have performed reckless maneuvers, sometimes within 15 meters of our aircraft, fired chaff clouds and flares, or approached U.S. aircraft too quickly or too closely.”
