TAIPEI, Taiwan — Chinese fighter jets chased a US military aircraft through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Tuesday, China’s military said.
The US aircraft was a P-8A Poseidon patrol and reconnaissance plane, capable of long-range anti-submarine warfare, according to a statement from the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command.
Chinese military forces “organized fighter jets to follow and monitor the flight of the US aircraft and handled it in accordance with the law,” said Li Xi, a senior colonel and spokesman for the command.
“Theater command troops will remain on constant high alert and resolutely protect national sovereignty and security as well as regional peace and stability,” he added.
The US Navy did not immediately comment on the incident.
China claims the self-ruled island of Taiwan as its own territory and ignores other countries’ patrolling waters that separate it from the island.
On Friday, Germany sailed two warships through the Taiwan Strait in its first transit of the disputed waters in more than two decades, drawing criticism from Beijing.
In 2001, a US surveillance plane and a Chinese Navy fighter jet collided in mid-air near the Chinese island province of Hainan, resulting in the death of the Chinese pilot. The US said its plane was in international airspace and that the accident was the result of reckless flying on the Chinese side.