Outside the Beltway

Keeping Up Foreign Relations

United States and People's Republic of China forces are playing a dangerous game.

James Joyner · Friday, December 30, 2022 · 9 comments

When I saw the Bloomberg headline “Chinese Jet Buzzed Air Force Plane From Just 20 Feet Away, US Says,” my immediate thought turned to this classic moment from the original Top Gun movie:

Alas, the report is paywalled. NPR (“The U.S. says Chinese intercept could have caused an air collision“) steps in:

The U.S. military says a Chinese navy fighter jet flew dangerously close to an Air Force reconnaissance plane over the South China Sea earlier this month, forcing the American pilot to maneuver to avoid a collision.

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement Thursday that the incident occurred Dec. 21 when the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy J-11 flew in front of and within 20 feet of the nose of an RC-135, a type of large reconnaissance plane operated by the U.S. Air Force.

The U.S. plane was “lawfully conducting routine operations over the South China Sea in international airspace,” the statement said. Its pilot was forced to “take evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision,” it said.

China frequently challenges military aircraft from the U.S. and its allies, especially over the South China Sea, which China claims in its entirety. Such behavior led to a 2001 in-air collision in which a Chinese plane was lost and pilot killed.

“The U.S. Indo-Pacific Joint Force is dedicated to a free and open Indo-Pacific region and will continue to fly, sail and operate at sea and in international airspace with due regard for the safety of all vessels and aircraft under international law,” the statement said.

“We expect all countries in the Indo-Pacific region to use international airspace safely and in accordance with international law,” it said.

China deeply resents the presence of U.S. military assets in the South China Sea and regularly demands its ships and planes leave the area. The U.S. says it is fully entitled to operate in and over the South China Sea and ignores the Chinese demands.

Such dangerous incidents persist despite U.S.-China agreements on how to deal with unexpected encounters.

The U.S. and others have also accused China of harassing military aircraft and ships in the East China Sea off the Chinese coast and as far away as the Horn of Africa, where China operates a naval base.

WSJ (“China Asserts Military Power Against U.S. With Naval Drills, Air Intercept“) adds:

On Wednesday, Japan’s Defense Ministry reported sighting Chinese warships—led by the aircraft carrier Liaoning—operating over the past week or so in Western Pacific waters within relative proximity of Guam, where the U.S. maintains sizable naval and air forces. The ministry didn’t give precise coordinates but included a map with approximate locations that suggested the Liaoning and its escorts had sailed within 500 miles of Guam between Dec. 23 and 25.

A nationalistic Chinese Communist Party-run tabloid, Global Times, published an English-language report saying that the naval maneuvers marked the first time the Liaoning carrier battle group had approached Guam. The report said the Liaoning group demonstrated China’s ability to resist potential U.S. attempts to interfere militarily in Taiwan, a democratically self-governed island that Beijing claims as its territory.

The U.S. military routinely engages in what it calls “freedom of navigation operations” (FONOPS) in the South China Sea and other contested spaces (the Persian Gulf, for instance) precisely to demonstrate that it will not allow territorial claims that fall outside the limits of international law to gain legitimacy. Not shockingly, those making the claims see this as provocation, not “maintaining the global commons.”

Both things can, of course, be true. If the United States doesn’t assert its rights in these spaces, lesser powers, including even the likes of Japan, will be intimidated into de facto conceding China’s claims.

China, naturally, feels bullied and disrespected and will continue pushing the envelope to see what it can get away with.

As to the photo above, clearly I wasn’t the only one with that thought. When I searched for it I found Jared Keller’s Task & Purpose report “2 Chinese Fighter Jets Gave A US Surveillance Plane The ‘Top Gun’ Treatment.” I assumed it was a report on this week’s incident:

On Wednesday evening, a pair of Chinese SU-30 fighter jets buzzed a U.S. WC-135 Constant Phoenix surveillance plane over the East China Sea. By itself, this isn’t that unusual, of course — Russian jets seem to now routinely intercept Air Force surveillance craft all over the world, and the Air Force is happy to return the favor in kind.

Well, it seems the East China Sea incident is far from routine, and the Air Force is officially complaining to the Chinese military about the fly-by, which the Pentagon has characterized as an “unprofessional” intercept.

Why was it so unprofessional? Because the Chinese were inverted:

The report was from May 2017—more than five years ago. So, this game has been going on for quite some time.