Chinese jet buzzing a bomber is just the latest outcome of Britons craving a cuppa

(Originally published Oct. 27 in “What in the World“) The Pentagon is upset because a Chinese fighter jet sent to chase off a U.S. B-52 flying over the South China Sea came too close to the long-range, nuclear-capable strategic bomber.

According to the Pentagon, China’s J-11 came within three meters of the B-52. It didn’t say where precisely over the South China Sea this took place. China maintains a ridiculous claim of sovereignty over the entire South China Sea. The U.S. doesn’t recognize that claim and says its military should be free to navigate anywhere in or over those waters it wants to, even a bomber capable of flying 14,000km from any U.S. base in Asia to virtually any point in China, drop its payload and fly back.

The longest distance from China’s southernmost point on Hainan to the farthest reaches of the South China Sea is roughly 2,200km. China’s claims over the South China Sea may be fantastic, but one does have to wonder whether the U.S. would allow Chinese strategic bombers to come within 2,200km of, say, the California coast before dispatching some fighter jets to see them off.

The Pentagon’s objections seem largely over what it says was the reckless behavior of China’s pilot, who it accuses of flying too close and too fast around its big bomber. And this encounter is just one of an increasing series of unsafe interceptions making the Pentagon anxious. It says that since the fall of 2021, China’s military has “initiated” 180 such encounters with the U.S. and other militaries, more than in the previous two decades. This statistic would be more disturbing if it established the denominator of how often U.S. warplanes and warships traverse the South China Sea and whether the unharried passage the Pentagon says they enjoyed before China started trying to enforce its claims by driving off foreign militaries. Without it, the Pentagon’s tally may suggest less about China’s increasing ambitions than it does about the capabilities and range of its aircraft.

Indeed, last November China registered a protest against the record number of “routine” reconnaissance flights the U.S. had conducted over the South China Sea.

As this newsletter observed at the time:

These close encounters are a routine feature of national defense. Militaries test potential adversaries by flying their aircraft really close to the other guy’s border and seeing what he does. The danger, of course, is that their planes crash and a government interprets it as an act of war. In 2001, a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet 110km off the coast of China’s Hainan and 1,900km from the U.S. base on Japan’s Okinawa. The crew of the U.S. plane made an emergency landing in Hainan where they were detained and interrogated for 10 days before being sent home. The Chinese pilot ejected but was never found.

U.S. spy planes conduct regular flights over the South China Sea near China to help reinforce “freedom of navigation” in the area in defiance of China’s claims to virtually the entire body of water. China’s claims include waters farther from China’s shores than they are near to the coastlines of the other nations along the South China Sea, including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

While China has been building military bases on reefs and atolls in these disputed waters, the U.S. is also rushing to build up the defenses of China’s “renegade province,” Taiwan.

And the U.S. and China seem headed for more calculated collisions in the South China Sea, any one of which could finally trigger the conflict so many in Washington (and some in Beijing) seem to desire.

The latest encounter comes as tensions rise between China and the Philippines over rival claims to Second Thomas Shoal, where a Chinese coast guard vessel recently collided with a Philippine vessel trying to resupply a besieged garrison there.

The B-52 was one of two sent from Guam to underscore U.S. President Joe Biden’s warning to China not to attack Philippine vessels or risk triggering the U.S.-Philippines mutual defense treaty.

In other words, the B-52 was sent to provoke China as Washington’s response to China’s provocative behavior below on Second Thomas Shoal.

Mission accomplished.

Second Thomas Shoal sits less than 40km north of First Thomas Shoal. Both are named for Thomas Gilbert, captain of the British merchant ship Charlotte, which began service in 1786 transporting convicts from Britain to Botany Bay, just outside present-day Sydney, Australia. It returned home via China to pick up a cargo for the East India Company, which had recently begun selling opium in exchange for Chinese porcelain and tea because it was running out of silver with which to pay.

Opium was a smash hit, creating an addiction crisis. But China’s attempts to outlaw the sale of opium led in 1839 to the First Opium War, which British warships won. As part of its terms, the U.K. required China to allow the import of opium. China was also forced as part of the 1842 treaty ending the war to cede Hong Kong to Britain, the first of many colonial-era indignities China’s President Xi Jinping is determined to reverse by building up China’s military and enforcing its historical claims to territories and even unpopulated atolls far from its shores.

Escalation in the Middle East has begun: the U.S. launched retaliatory airstrikes Friday against Iran-backed militias in Syria that attacked U.S. bases there and in Iraq in retaliation for Israel’s attacks on Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel.

That crisp air of fall means it’s time for Russia to resume attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure. This time last year, Moscow used missiles to put Ukraine’s population in the dark. This year it’s drones. Whatever Russian forces put in the air, though, Ukraine is now better-equipped to knock it out of the sky—and then annihilate whoever put it there. All thanks to Jake Sullivan, U.S. Patriot missiles, Nasams, and long-range Atacms.