US and Chinese military officials will hold talks on rules of behavior at the Pentagon today and tomorrow, a US official said, days after the US denounced what it called a “dangerous” Chinese jet intercept of a US Navy patrol plane.
On Tuesday last week, a Chinese fighter pilot flew acrobatic maneuvers around the US Navy’s P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine and reconnaissance plane, crossing over and under it in international airspace over the South China Sea, the Pentagon said.
At one point, the jet flew wingtip-to-wingtip about 9m from the Poseidon, then performed a barrel roll over the top of it.
The US defense official said other close intercepts occurred in March, April and May.
While this week’s discussions at the Pentagon were planned long before the recent incidents, they touch on issues at the core of the US concerns about Chinese military behavior: that a Chinese provocation could spiral into a broader crisis sparked by a military miscalculation in the disputed territory.
China’s sovereignty claims over the strategic stretch of mineral-rich water off its southern coast and to the east of mainland Southeast Asia set it directly against US allies Vietnam and the Philippines, while Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia also lay claim to parts of the disputed area.
The meetings involve a working group to discuss existing multilateral standards of behavior for air and maritime activities, the defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Assistant Deputy Chief of US Naval Operations Rear Admiral James Foggo is among the US military officials attending, the official said.
It was not immediately clear which Chinese officials would participate.
The US and Chinese militaries have boosted their contacts in recent years amid recognition that, as China’s economic interests continue to expand, it will play a bigger security role in the world and have more interactions with the US military.
Still, the recent intercepts show that those increased contacts have not eliminated friction between the two.
In April 2001, a similar aggressive intercept of a US EP-3E spy plane by a Chinese F-8 fighter in the same area resulted in a collision that killed the Chinese pilot and forced the US plane to make an emergency landing at a base on China’s Hainan Island.
The 24 US air crew members were held for 11 days until Washington apologized for the incident.
That encounter soured US-Chinese relations in the early days of former US president George W. Bush’s first term.
China has denied wrongdoing in the latest incident and blamed the US, citing “large-scale and highly frequent close-in reconnaisssance.”
US Department of State spokeswoman Jen Psaki responded by saying the US operated “in a transparent manner.”
“We make other countries, including China, aware of our plans,” Psaki said.
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
RSS