Pentagon cites more than 180 incidents of aggression against US aircraft over the East and South China seas

The US has accused China of orchestrating a “concerted” campaign of dangerous and provocative air force manoeuvres against US military planes in international airspace, warning it could spark an inadvertent conflict between them.

The Pentagon said aggressive tactics by Chinese aircraft had threatened US planes flying over the East and South China Sea regions, tallying more than 180 such incidents since autumn 2021.

“That’s nearly 200 cases where (Chinese) operators have … discharged chaff or shot off flares or approached too rapidly or close to US aircraft,” said Ely Ratner, assistant secretary of defence for Indo-Pacific security affairs.

  • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    The recent Canadian fighter was not in international waters. He was in disputed water between China and Japan. Regardless of who you support in that territorial conflict, the Japanese who occupied the islands from 1895 until 1945, or the Chinese who occupied it from ~1400 until 1895, and then again in 1945, when the US administered the (Chinese populated) islands, until 1972 when the US gave the islands to Japan. Either way, it’s not international waters.

    • sartalon@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Certainly no place to act like the raging douchebag that China is being, for sure.

      • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, preventing foreign military vehicles from entering your airspace is totally being a raging douchebag, but flying your military vehicles thousands of miles from home for the sole purpose of force projection and intimidation isn’t. Totally logical thought process.

        I imagine you’d be okay with the Chinese doing the same thing to the US and Canada then, right?

        • sartalon@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I feel like I have to shout because either you are being deliberately obtuse or you are just stupid.

          IT IS NOT THEIR AIRSPACE!

          JUST SAYING IT NOW BELONGS TO THEM IS NOT HOW THIS SHIT WORKS!

            • sartalon@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              This is such a stupid argument.

              The whole point of force projection is to show them they can’t just get away with the shit they are trying to pull!!

              We are there because we are allies with the folks they are trying to bully.

              The whole point of having large allied groups is to prevent the shit China is trying to pull.

              I wish you were a tree because then you could still be this stupid but still have some positive benefit to the globe.

              You’re probably just a troll anyway.

              • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Hmm. How many countries has China invaded this century? And how many has the US invaded? How many civilians has China murdered in these invasions? And how many did the US? Which country bullies the world to the point of literally overthrowing dozens of countries in the last 50 years? Who invaded Libya and assassinated their democratically elected president because he wanted to trade oil in gold instead of USD? Who just literally performed a coup in Bolivia because they dared to nationalize their lithium reserves?

                Which country heads the IMF, who forces countries to sell their public infrastructure to multi-national corporations and requires them to gut their labor laws in exchange for loans with exploitative terms?

                We have no high ground from which to talk. We are definitively the most violent regime in the world, the most aggressive, and the one who has directly resulted in the most civilian deaths worldwide.

                • sartalon@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  It’s hilariously laughable that you are trying to, somehow, put China on some moral high ground.

                  US is not a prize horse, I assure you, but to somehow put blinders on, for all of China’s egregiousness, is particularly funny.

                  Is it because you are researching China behind their great Internet wall that scrubs all references of their atrocities?

                  My favorite was the recent blurring of two athlete’s uniforms, because their numbers, next to each other, references Tiannamon Square, even though it was a random happenstance

                  Tibet, Taiwan, Uyghurs, Hong Kong, South China Sea… innumerable imprisonment of dissidents, with no legal recourse or contact with the outside world, and that’s just in theast, what, 10 years? Shills like you give shills a bad name.

                  How about the flagrant disregard for IP or international environmental laws? The constant industrial espionage, the flooding of the market with cheap, inferior made products. Yet their own economy is a house of cards, since Winnie the Pooh started disregarding the long term consequences for short term gain.

                  There is no area where China is NOT a bad actor. I’m starting to think it’s their culture and not just the latest administration.

        • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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          1 year ago

          Well actually america owns all the airspace over China because I said so. So china must stop flying all their planes in my airspace. (See how ridiculous that sounds) fuck china.