China accuses US of ‘slander and hype’ over air incident

Washington’s account of last week’s air incident over the South China Sea, involving a Chinese military jet and a US spy plane, disregards the truth and is “pure slander and hype,” the Defense Ministry in Beijing has said.

On Friday, the US Indo-Pacific Command claimed that a Chinese J-11 fighter approached a US Air Force RC-135 aircraft to within six meters, and that this “unsafe” move forced the American pilot to perform an evasive maneuver. It also published a video of the December 21 incident, showing the two aircraft flying close to each other.

Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Tian Julin rejected the US accusations late on Saturday, claiming that, actually, it was the American plane that was carrying out “dangerous maneuvers.”