China’s foreign ministry on Tuesday said frequent U.S. surveillance activities are not good for mutual trust and constitute a threat to China’s security after Chinese fighter jets intercepted a U.S. Navy surveillance plane over the East China Sea.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said initial reports showed one of the Chinese J-10 aircraft came within about 300 feet (91 meters) to the U.S. EP-3 plane on Sunday to cause the American aircraft to change direction.
One of the officials said the Chinese jet was armed and the interception happened 80 nautical miles (148 km) from the Chinese city of Qingdao.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang made the comments during a regular news briefing in Beijing and referred questions related to the flight to the “relevant department”, a reference to the defence ministry, which has yet to comment.
“For a long period, U.S. military warships and jets have carried out long and very frequent close surveillance (operations) near China’s coast. This is not conducive to mutual trust between the Chinese and U.S. militaries, and constitutes a threat to China’s legitimate security. We hope the United States can cease this kind of surveillance activity,” Lu Kang said.
China closely monitors any U.S. military activity around its coastline. Incidents such as Sunday’s intercept are relatively common.
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