"The issue is being addressed with China through appropriate diplomatic and military channels," said Air Force spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Lori Hodge. "Distances always have a bearing on how we characterize interactions," Hodge said, adding a US military investigation into the intercept was underway. China is deeply suspicious of any US military activity in the resource-rich South China Sea. On Feb. 8, a US Navy P-3 spy plane and a Chinese military aircraft came close to each other over the South China Sea in an incident the Navy saw as unsafe but also inadvertent. Reuters reported at the time that the aircraft came within 1,000 feet (305 meters) of each other in the vicinity of the Scarborough Shoal, between the Philippines and the Chinese mainland.

Source: bd News24 May 19, 2017 01:52 UTC