Chinese Tabloid says US Navy's P-8A 'interfered' with Chinese sub before intercept

Photo - PLAAF

A Chinese fighter jet that made a controversial intercept of an American reconnaissance aircraft earlier this month may have been forced to do so because the US plane had been "seriously interfering" with a Chinese submarine, says the Chinese-language version of the Global Times, a nationalistic tabloid under the auspices of the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily.

In yet another staunch defense of the intercept by the Chinese J-11 fighter from the People's Liberation Army on the US Navy's P-8A reconnaissance plane on Aug. 19, the Global Times questioned what other alternatives were available to China when the US had been conducting highly frequent close-in surveillance near Chinese waters and airspace.While Pentagon press secretary John Kirby labeled the intercept, in which the two planes came within nine meters of one another, as "aggressive" and "dangerous," Global Times said China had no choice, adding that the primary role of the P8-A is anti-submarine warfare, meaning it is designed to find, track and deter, damage or destroy enemy submarines.

Citing an unnamed Chinese military expert, Global Times said that the P8-A may have been intercepted because it was "seriously interfering" with the underwater movements of a Chinese submarine, stating that the reported intercept point was only 200 kilometers from Chinese airspace.The expert suggested that the incident has been completely overblown by US media, saying that the Chinese military has always been quite "restrained" when dealing with US planes and should have a "standard, professional" intercept process in place. Chinese pilots also have "very strong discipline," he added.

The expert goes on to deduce that the PA-8 may have deployed a sonobuoy, an expendable sonar system dropped from aircraft conducting anti-submarine warfare. This would have been a "very serious provocation," he said.