China has accused Canada of carrying out “malicious and provocative” actions in the South China Sea, after the Canadian Navy said Chinese fighter jets endangered a helicopter in two close intercepts above international waters.

The comments come after CNN revealed last week that a Chinese warplane fired flares in front of a Canadian military helicopter on October 29, an operation that Canadian military officers said was reckless and could have resulted in the downing of the aircraft.

The incident was the second of two “unsafe” encounters the Canadian chopper had on that day with Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy J-11 fighters, which got as close as 100 feet (30 meters) from the helicopter, Maj. Rob Millen, air officer aboard the Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Ottawa, told CNN in an interview on the warship.

  • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Have you read what happened? There’s only one party here doing malicious, provocative moves. It’s the same one that’s charging naval ships at Filipino fishermen and building structures in international waters in the South China Sea.

    There’s a very long list of times China has done something like this. They’re fucking around, and if they accidentally do crash into another naval ship or plane, they’re going to find out. If that warplane’s flares downed the helicopter, it would be an international incident. I would be hard pressed to blame Canada if they declared war.

    Think of it this way. Is it wrong for Iran to be hostile to the US after the US shot down one of their civilian jets? If Israel shot down a helicopter with journalists, would there be any question they fucked up?