Days before Xi's U.S. state visit, Chinese jets recklessly intercepted a U.S. spy plane

On Sept. 15 — a week before Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in the U.S. for a high-stakes state visit — two Chinese jets made an "unsafe" interception of a U.S. RC-135 surveillance plane in international airspace about 80 miles off the coast of China's Shandong peninsula, military officials told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. In the incident, two JH-7 Chinese fighters flew within 500 feet of the U.S. spy plane's nose, though a military official told The Journal that the dangerous flyby fell short of a "near collision.”

Unsafe interceptions are often a big deal, but the Pentagon is playing this one down, saying it's the first one since a rogue Chinese wing commander harassed U.S. aircraft in August 2014. "The long period between this intercept and the last unsafe intercept, as well as the nature of this intercept, indicate that this may be an isolated incident,” said Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Bill Urban. U.S. officials told The Journal that Xi's visit might result in a memorandum of understanding for avoiding future provocative or reckless air-to-air encounters between U.S. and Chinese air forces, similar to a naval agreement signed last year.

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