The Chinese navy warned a U.S. surveillance plane flying over artificial islands that Beijing is creating in the disputed South China Sea to leave the area eight times, according to CNN, which was on board the flight on Wednesday.
At one stage, after the American pilots responded by saying the plane was flying through international airspace, a Chinese radio operator said with exasperation: “This is the Chinese navy … You go!”
The P8-A Poseidon, the U.S. military’s most advanced surveillance aircraft, flew at 15,000 feet (4,500 meters) at its lowest point, CNN said.
The incident, along with recent Chinese warnings to Philippine military aircraft to leave areas around the Spratlys archipelago in the South China Sea, suggests Beijing is trying to enforce a military exclusion zone above its new islands.
Some security experts worry about the risk of confrontation, especially after a U.S. official said last week that the Pentagon was considering sending military aircraft and ships to assert freedom of navigation around the Chinese-made islands.
State Department spokesperson Marie Harf said U.S. planes operated “in accordance with international law in disputed areas of the South China Sea” and would continue to do so “consistent with the rights freedoms and lawful uses of the sea.”
Harf said verbal warnings had been issued by the Chinese but added that she would not describe the incident as a “confrontation.”
Footage taken by the P8-A Poseidon and aired by CNN showed a hive of construction and dredging activity on the new islands the plane flew over, as well as Chinese navy ships nearby.
CNN said it was the first time the Pentagon had declassified video of China’s building activity and audio of challenges to a U.S. aircraft.
During the daily briefing reporters also questioned Harf about the release of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails. She told reporters the U.S. State Department will release “very, very soon” a first tranche of emails relating to an attack in 2012 on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya.
“We will be releasing very, very soon the first set we said we would release of the documents that have already been provided to the committee that are related to Benghazi,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters, referring to a House of Representatives committee investigating the attack.
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the U.S. State Department to produce a plan to release batches of Hillary Clinton’s emails from her time there, raising the prospect of months of drip-by-drip disclosures that could plague her presidential campaign.
It was a rebuke to the State Department, which had said on Monday it might need until January 2016 to produce the emails. (Washington, D.C., United States)