A Chinese fighter jet came within 10 feet of a US Air Force B-52 bomber flying over the South China Sea on Tuesday, according to the US military.
The Chinese pilot “flew in an unsafe and unprofessional manner, demonstrated poor airmanship by closing with uncontrolled excessive speed, flying below, in front of, and within 10 feet of the B-52, putting both aircraft in danger of collision,” US Indo-Pacific Command said in a Thursday statement. “We are concerned this pilot was unaware of how close he came to causing a collision.”
News of the latest Chinese intercept comes as President Joe Biden is expected to speak with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi when he visits the White House on Friday, CNN reported on Thursday. It is not clear whether the meeting will be a formal discussion or a more informal meet and greet. Wang is also expected to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday and national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Friday.
Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping may also meet on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in San Francisco next month, though neither side has confirmed finalized plans.
The Pentagon’s top official in charge of security in the Indo-Pacific, Ely Ratner, said earlier this month that the US has seen more instances of “coercive and risky” behavior from Chinese pilots against US aircraft in the last two years over the East and South China Seas than in the entire decade before that.
“Since the fall of 2021, we have seen more than 180 such incidents,” Ratner said. “It’s a centralized and concerted campaign to perform these risky behaviors in order to coerce a change in lawful US operational activity.”
The Pentagon’s efforts this year to engage with Chinese military leadership have gone unanswered, and US officials have grown increasingly concerned about the lack of…
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