BEIJING: The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) started a series of exercises in the South China Sea on Thursday, as Chinese netizens commemorated the death of a heroic PLA pilot whose plane collided with a US spy aircraft conducting close-in reconnaissance on China 20 years ago.
China has become much stronger than it was when the incident happened, as it has many advanced weapons and equipment now in service, analysts said, noting that as the US continues to intensify close-in reconnaissance operations on China, the risk of another similar incident is rising.
Military exercises will be held in a circular zone with a radius of five kilometers in the South China Sea, west of the Leizhou Peninsula, from Thursday to the end of April. The entry of other vessels is prohibited, reads a navigation restriction notice released by China’s Maritime Safety Administration on its website on Wednesday.
Thursday was also the 20th anniversary of the Hainan Island incident that occurred on April 1, 2001, when PLA Navy pilot Wang Wei’s J-8II fighter jet collided with a US EP-3 signals intelligence aircraft above China’s exclusive economic zone southeast of Hainan Island. The US aircraft was conducting close-in reconnaissance in the South China Sea.
Remembering the incident, the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative (SCSPI), a think tank based in Beijing, released an article on Thursday pointing out that the US military’s aerial close-in reconnaissance on China has been on the rise over the past 20 years and the risk of another similar incident is also rising.
On March 22, a US Air Force RC-135U reconnaissance aircraft edged near South China’s coastal regions and was only 25.3 nautical miles away from China’s territorial sea baseline; and on August 25 last year, a US Air Force U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft trespassed into a no-fly zone of a PLA live-fire exercise, the SCSPI article said, stressing the risks.
Unlike 20 years ago, the PLA now operates many advanced weapons and equipment, including the J-20 stealth fighter jet and two aircraft carriers. And with them, today’s PLA troops are continuing Wang’s work in safeguarding China’s security, Chinese netizens said on social media.
– The Daily Mail-Global Times News exchange item
