WASHINGTON: US and Chinese military officials will hold talks on rules of behaviour at the Pentagon today and tomorrow, a US official said, days after the United States denounced a “dangerous” Chinese jet intercept of a US Navy patrol plane.
Last Tuesday, a Chinese fighter pilot flew acrobatic manoeuvres around the US Navy’s P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine and reconnaissance plane, crossing over and under it in international airspace over the South China Sea, the Pentagon said.
At one point, the jet flew wing tip-to-wing tip about 9 metres from the Poseidon, then performed a barrel roll over the top of it. The US defence official said other close intercepts occurred in March, April and May.
While this week’s discussions at the Pentagon were planned long before the recent incidents, they touch on issues at the core of the US concerns about Chinese military behaviour: that a Chinese provocation could spiral into a broader crisis sparked by a military miscalculation in the disputed territory.
China’s sovereignty claims over the strategic stretch of mineral-rich water off its southern coast and to the east of mainland Southeast Asia set it directly against US allies Vietnam and the Philippines, while Brunei, Taiwan and Malaysia also lay claim to parts of the disputed areas.
The meetings involve a working group to discuss existing multilateral standards of behaviour for air and maritime activities, the defence official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Rear Admiral James Foggo, Assistant Deputy Chief of US Naval Operations, is among the US military officials attending, the official said.
China’s Defence Ministry confirmed it had sent a delegation to the United States for the “consultative working group meetings” but it did not say which officials were involved. “This is a programme within the Sino-US annual exchange plans, and is aimed at implementing the relevant consensus achieved by the leaders of the two countries and to promote the establishment of the code of conduct on naval and air force safety on the high seas between China and the United States,” the ministry said.
The US and Chinese militaries have boosted their contacts in recent years amid recognition that, as China’s economic interests expand, it will play a bigger security role in the world and have more interactions with the US military.
Still, the recent intercepts show that those increased contacts have not eliminated friction.
In April 2001, a similar aggressive intercept of a US EP-3E spy plane by a Chinese F-8 fighter in the same area resulted in a collision that killed the Chinese pilot and forced the American plane to make an emergency landing at a base on China’s Hainan island.
The 24 US air crew members were held for 11 days until Washington apologised for the incident. That encounter soured US-Chinese relations in the early days of President George W Bush’s first administration.
China has denied wrongdoing in the latest incident and blamed the United States, citing “large-scale and highly frequent close-in reconnaissance.”
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the US operated “in a transparent manner.”
Reuters
