China Says Canada Carried Out ‘Malicious’ Air Patrol After Ottawa Flags Aircraft Intercept

New Delhi: China accused Canada of carrying out a “malicious and provocative” air patrol over the South China Sea, a day after Canadian Defence Minister Bill Blair slammed Beijing for what it called the second “significantly unsafe” intercept in the last two weeks, news agency AFP reported.

The Canadian Defence Minister said that a Chinese fighter jet flew very close to one of their cyclone helicopters with “little separation” between the fighter aircraft and the chopper.

“The actions of the People’s Republic of China fighter jet were deemed to be significantly unsafe, and we’ll express our concerns to the People’s Republic of China about that,” AFP quoted Blair as saying.

Hitting back at Ottawa over its allegations, China on Saturday said the Canadian helicopter was carrying out “a malicious and provocative act with ulterior motives”.

“Recently, ship-borne helicopters on Canada’s HMCS Ottawa made two sorties towards the airspace around China’s Xisha Islands, with unknown intentions,” Chinese Defence Ministry spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang said in a statement, reported the news agency.

The Defence Ministry further claimed that China “organised naval and air forces to identify and verify (the craft) in accordance with the law, and issued multiple warnings”, however, the Canadian chopper neither responded to that and moreover took provocative actions such as “flying at ultra-low altitudes”, AFP reported.

Hitting back at Ottawa, the Defence Ministry further said that Canada’s actions violated the domestic laws and “endangered China’s sovereignty and security”.

“We urge the Canadian side… to strictly curb the actions of frontline sea and air forces to prevent accidents at sea and in the air,” the statement further added.

It is to be noted that Beijing claiming almost the entire South China Sea by deploying hundreds of vessels and aircraft has been a major cause of concern for the United States and its regional allies.

According to reports, US had recently accused China of conducting a “concerted” campaign of “dangerous air force manoeuvres” against their fighter jets over the disputed region.