Chinese Military Jet Intercepts Canadian Forces Plane in Aggressive Encounter

A Chinese J-11 military fighter jet flies above the Taiwan Strait near Pingtan, the closest land of mainland China to the island of Taiwan, in Pingtan in southeastern China's Fujian Province, on Aug. 5, 2022. AP Photo/Ng Han Guan

A Chinese military jet intercepted a Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) aircraft on Oct. 16 in international waters off the coast of China.

“The actions of the Chinese military in these circumstances, I think, was unacceptable and put our aircraft and their mission at significant risk,” Defence Minister Bill Blair said in a press conference on Oct. 16.

The Canadian aircraft in question was engaged in Operation NEON, a mission in which Canada participates to enforce U.N. Security Council sanctions against North Korea.

Mr. Blair said it has become routine for aircraft engaged in the U.N. mission to interact with Chinese aircraft, and that in the majority of cases the interactions have been “professional.” However, he said, the interaction in this case “was not professional and not safe.”

Mr. Blair acknowledged that there have been other past incidents of “unprofessional conduct” by the Chinese, and said Canada is following diplomatic processes to express its concern about the incident.

“Those type of behaviours are not ever acceptable, and we will express that to the People’s Republic of China in the most appropriate way,” he said.

This episode parallels a recent near-collision between a Chinese warship and an American destroyer, the USS Chung-Hoon. The incident unfolded during a joint Canada-U.S. mission in the Taiwan Strait in June 2023. In an interview with The Epoch Times, Carl Schuster, the former director of operations for the U.S. Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center in Hawaii, said that incident was a deliberate provocation by China.

Additionally, several months prior to this incident, Chinese military jets intercepted a Royal Canadian Air Force surveillance plane during Operation NEON.

The motivation behind the aggressive activities of the Chinese jets remains unknown.

Jenny Li contributed to this report.