US plane ‘interfered’ with Chinese sub before intercept
US plane ‘interfered’ with Chinese sub before intercept: Global Times
[ Editors Note: We had no way to verify this story but it is consistent then the kinds of games we would play when testing defences during the Cold War. But dropping a sonobuoy on a sub in their neck of the woods would be a very aggressive move indeed.
As to why the Navy would mess with them like this, take your pick of reasons. It could be part of the bogeyman game of provoking them to respond. The report of their reponse would then be plastered all over US media as an aggression while leaving out what we did to trigger it. It is a mini false flag, in that nobody was killed but the event was totally orchestrated to manipulate public opinion, an attack on the public acutually.
And it could have been a diversion from the Ukraine mess that is going south, along with America's claim to exceptionalism if you leave out exceptional blunders. I fear it will get worse before it gets better. Politicians are always wanting some grandstanding theater around election time, so we are in the season for doing things for a bad reason... Jim W. Dean ]
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- First published August 28, 2014 -
Why would we be provoking China? They and Vietnam had already agreed to settle the offshore drilling controvery
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.
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