It’s time to be alarmed not just alert. On Sunday, Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles revealed a “very dangerous” intercept by a People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s (PLAAF) fighter of an Australian P-8 maritime patrol aircraft took place on 26 May over the South China Sea. The P-8 aircraft was flying in international airspace at the time, well outside territorial waters. Australia has conducted maritime patrols in the area for several decades – the P-8s flight was unremarkable, the J-16 fighter’s aggressive moves anything but.
The 2020 Defence Strategic Update earlier fretted about China’s grey zone activities. This intercept suggests the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is now escalating these, with a possibility of another collision as occurred in 2001 with a US Navy aircraft.
Please click here to read the full “A flare up in China’s deliberate pattern of aggression” article published at The Interpreter, written by Griffith Asia Institute Visiting Fellow, Dr Peter Layton.