SYDNEY (dpa): Canberra and Beijing are trading barbs over an incident between a Chinese fighter jet and Australia military plane.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Friday condemned the actions of a People's Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, which released flares some 30 metres from a Royal Australian Air Force jet which was patrolling the disputed South China Sea.
The Tuesday incident did not result in injuries nor damage to the aircraft.
"We have made representations through our normal diplomatic channels," Albanese told reporters as he addressed the incident for the first time.
"We regard this action as unsafe. We've made that clear, we've made it public as well as in private."
Beijing on Thursday said that the Australian aircraft had "deliberately intruded into China's airspace over Xisha Qundao [also known as Paracel or Xisha Islands] without China's permission."
"Such move violated China's sovereignty and undermined China's national security," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun continued. "The Chinese side took legitimate, lawful, professional and restrained measures to expel the airplane."
Guo said that Beijing lodged a protest with Canberra and "urged it to stop infringing on China’s sovereignty and making provocations and stop disrupting peace and stability in the South China Sea."
The Australian government on Thursday stressed that its defence force has "undertaken maritime surveillance activities in the region and does so in accordance with international law, exercising the right to freedom of navigation and overflight in international waters and airspace."
In a similar incident, an Australian jet had to take evasive action when a PLA aircraft dropped flares in front of it in May 2024.
China regards almost the entire South China Sea as its territorial waters. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei reject the claims, citing a 2016 ruling by the UN arbitration tribunal, but China does not recognise the ruling.
The resource-rich area is also considered an important global trade route. - dpa
