Chinese J-11 Fighter Nearly Dies in an American Aircraft Over South China Sea
A Chinese J-11 fighter of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) came within 10 feet (3 meters) of a US Air Force (USAF) RC-135 aircraft over the South China Sea (SCS) in an incident that Took place on December 21, forcing the US plane to take “evasive maneuvers” to “avoid a collision.”
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This was confirmed by the US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) On Thursday.
“The PLAN pilot flew an unsafe maneuver by flying in front of and within 20 feet of the nose of the RC-135,” The INDOPACOM released a statement. US military aircraft and ships regularly travel through the region and carry out surveillance operations. China’s claims in the SCS overlap with the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
The RC-135 intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance (ISR) planes are a series of aircraft designed for various forms of eavesdropping on radar, radio, and communications emissions.
The footage, which was probably shot inside the RC-135, shows a Chinese fighter approaching the American aircraft to its left. It then cuts in front of the American aircraft and veers off.
The J-11 is meanwhile equipped with four air to-air missiles. It includes two PL-12 Beyond Visual Range(BVR) air–to-air missiles (AAM), and two PL-8 long-range AAMs.
[embedded content]Super Scanner Plane used both against Russia and China
The RC-135 is equipped with sophisticated electronic, communications and signals intelligence (ELINT COMINT SIGINT), interception and analysis capabilities. It is used in Europe by the US to analyze and geolocate emissions from Russian radars and communications nodes.
RC-135V/Ws are available routinely airborne Since February 2022 war, they have been located near the Ukrainian border. They are believed to have been used for gathering target information for the US’ AGM-88 High Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) supplied to Ukraine.
According to flight tracking data, the RC-135 was used twice in the western Pacific. The first was in August during US Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
An RC-135, E-3 Sentry Airborne Early Warning and Control(AEW&C), P-8A plane and E-8 Joint STARS ground command and control were guiding her aerial escort.
The last was on December 28, when a US Air Force RC-135S (registration number AE01D6) took off from the Kadena Air Base in Japan’s Okinawa over the East China Sea.
The RC-135S version specializes on measurement and signals intelligence. It has different electro-optical instrument to observe ballistic missiles at long ranges. Although this suggests it was monitoring Chinese missile tests, it’s not clear whether such drills were conducted at that time. The USINDOPACOM statement does not indicate if it was. ‘S’ variant.
Europe and Indo-Pacific Overlap
This latest incident takes place against the backdrop of tensions rising in Taiwan Straits following August’s Pelosi Visit, which caused unprecedented tensions live-fire exercises around the island by Beijing’s military.
While the exercises concluded by mid-August, China’s flights into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ) and other naval maneuvers have been more specific. EurAsian Times analyses of military observers have shown that Beijing has mastered almost all aspects of military intervention.
It is notable that the sheer size and completeness of the amphibious, naval, ground force, and missilery preparations has shocked Western analysts. They compared it with the woeful unpreparedness The US military.
A war between the two superpowers is now concluded to be even more likely, as the region sits on a powder keg of three flashpoints along – the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Straits, and the South China Sea – with China a party in all three disputes.
Russia shares the northern Far East Asia’s contiguous maritime territory. Japan has also been involved in disputes regarding the Kuril islands. China and Japan dispute claims over Senkaku (or ‘Diaoyu’ Chinese: Islands in the East China Sea (ECS).
Amid Japan’s hardline on Russia over Ukraine, the same North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that Russia is unofficially at war with has been trying to make inroads Tokyo and the western Pacific alliance.
NATO, for its part, has described China as a “challenge” in its most recent security document. Japan has made loud calls to Taiwan to support it in case of a Chinese military strike. It is also transforming its militarily from a pacifist one to one that is more assertive and heavily funded.
Japan is seen as returning to its pre-World War 2 imperial form. This alarm bells in Seoul and Pyongyang. Recurrent tensions exist between North Korea and South Korea as well as Japan and North Korea over historical disputes which date back to that time.
This new European dimension to an Asia-Pacific scenario – and vice versa – has blurred the lines between the two theatres, thousands of miles apart. Russia, China and North Korea feel they have common enemies in the US, NATO and Japan and are trying to contain them all simultaneously.
The joint naval and air drills of the Russian and Chinese military forces showed their solidarity with the West. This belies the belief that China secretly opposes Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, and the year-long war has put it in a tough spot.
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