Beijing has labelled the recent mission by U. S. Air Force B-52H bombers as “provocative.”
Two U. S. Air Force nuclear-capable B-52H Stratofortress bombers flew from Anderson Air Force Base in the Western Pacific to a U. S. military base on Diego Garcia, an atoll in the central Indian Ocean, on September 24.
The B-52Hs transited the East and South China Seas during what a U. S. Department of Defense (DoD) spokesperson has called a “regularly scheduled operations designed to enhance our interoperability with our partners and allies in the region.” The two bombers were reportedly accompanied by two fighter jets of the Japan Air Self Defense Force (JASDF) for a part of the flight and refueled mid-air by a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker.
The bomber mission over the South China Sea, a strategic waterway claimed by China, has drawn the ire of Beijing. Chinese Ministry of Defense (MoD) spokesman Ren Guoqiang criticized it as “provocative,” the South China Morning Post reports. “As for the provocative action taken by the U. S. military aircraft, we are firmly against it and we will take all necessary means to safeguard our rights and interests,” Ren said.
“If it was 20 years ago and they have not militarized those features there, it would have just been another bomber on its way to Diego Garcia or whatever,” U.
