China rages at US for condemning aggressive fighter intercepts
Tom Rogan
Infuriated at suffering yet another public embarrassment, China has slammed the Pentagon’s publication of photos showing its dangerous interceptions of U.S. military aircraft.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon announced that there have been 180 “coercive” and/or “risky” People’s Liberation Army intercepts of U.S. military aircraft operating in international airspace since the latter half of 2021. The Pentagon released a number of photos and videos indicating the danger to American aircraft that these intercepts pose. The PLA has also repeatedly released flares, chaff, and other aircraft defensive capabilities in front of U.S. aircraft. This activity threatens to cause a deadly accident. Indeed, considering the crew complements of some of the U.S. aircraft involved, the PLA risks killing more than two dozen Americans in one incident.
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Interestingly, and likely in a misguided effort to mitigate China’s anger, the U.S. did not declare the intercepts as “unsafe and unprofessional.” That’s the standard term applied for intercepts that involve unpredictable actions in proximity of an aircraft at speeds of hundreds of miles per hour.
Beijing views this U.S. announcement as a public relations loss from out of the blue. A loss which will negatively affect its claims of being a responsible international actor. A loss similar to those which China has recently suffered via its imperialist maps and the Philippines’s drawing of attention to the Chinese coast guard’s aggression. These incidents do not exactly reinforce Beijing’s narrative of seeking only “win-win cooperation” with the world. It knows that they bolster U.S. efforts to establish stronger alliances against its imperialist expansionism.
In response to the Pentagon’s publication, Beijing’s Global Times state media outlet hinted that Beijing might cancel an upcoming meeting between U.S. and PLA officers. The resumption of those meetings has long been a priority for Washington. Referencing a similar Canadian complaint concerning a dangerous PLA intercept of one of its aircraft, the Global Times warned that “Countries like the US and Canada should understand that since they have the courage to provoke troubles in China’s airspace and territorial waters, they need to always be ready for China’s strong counteractions and the worst-case scenario they could face one day.”
Forget, for a second, this insipid regurgitation of China’s catchall domestic repression law against “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.” Forget that these activities are taking place far away from “China’s airspace and territorial waters.” What matters most here is China’s fury at the international community’s more skeptical stance toward its South China Sea activities. Still, the newspaper did inadvertently make clear the importance of continued U.S. efforts to challenge China’s illegitimate activity. It did so by openly admitting that the PLA’s aggressive intercepts are designed “to elevate the risk of U.S. military operations in China’s neighborhood, increase the cost for the U.S. to pursue its strategy of containing China, and drain its confidence.”
The U.S. cannot yield to those ambitions. Beijing must know that it will be held accountable for any Americans who are injured or otherwise due to its aggression. Beijing must know that the U.S. will continue to bear the cost of containing China’s aggression. And Beijing must know that the U.S. confidence to continue these activities finds rare bipartisan support.