The message China might be trying to send with ‘deliberate aggression’ towards Australian plane

The escalation of “deliberate and explicit” aggression from the Chinese military shouldn’t come as a surprise, says an Australian defence strategist.

It comes after a Chinese fighter jet pestered an Australian surveillance plane in international airspace late last month.

In a manoeuvre that could have killed the Australian crew, the fighter jet shot flares at the RAAF plane, before flying in front of the aircraft and dropping metal fragments (typically used to confuse missile systems) into the air, which entered the engines of the Australian plane.

The same thing happened is reported to have happened to a Canadian plane on the same day.

“This was deliberate aggression and it’s an escalation in the kind of explicit aggression we are seeing from the Chinese military,” Michael Shoebridge, Director of Defence, Strategy and National Security at the The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told Neil Mitchell.

“I think it’s about wanting to make the PLA – the Chinese military – such a risky, dangerous, entity to approach that other forces have to give them a wide berth and get out of their way for their own safety, and the safety of the PLA.”

Press PLAY below to hear his view on the disturbing incident

The Albanese Government has lodged a protest with Beijing after a Chinese fighter jet aggressively targeted an Australian surveillance aircraft over the deeply contested South China Sea. @CUhlmann #9News pic.twitter.com/vN73tKYXbM

— 9News Sydney (@9NewsSyd) June 5, 2022

Picture: Getty iStock