China warns against Dutch naval ‘intrusion’, disputes East China Sea encounter
- Defence ministry disputes Netherlands’ account of last week’s ‘unsafe’ incident between PLA aircraft and Dutch frigate
China’s defence ministry has “sternly warned” the Dutch navy against “provocative” actions and urged restraint, while denouncing an earlier statement by the Netherlands that said Chinese military jets conducted “unsafe” manoeuvres in the East China Sea last week.
“A helicopter from the Dutch navy’s Tromp frigate provocatively intruded east of Shanghai, and the People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theatre Command responded with verbal warnings and scrambled fighter jets to forcibly drive it away,” said Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang, a ministry spokesman.
In a statement last week, the Dutch defence ministry said two Chinese fighter jets circled above its frigate several times on Friday.
Two Chinese jets and a PLA helicopter then approached the ship’s NH90 maritime combat helicopter while it was on a patrol, the statement said.
“This created a potentially unsafe situation. The incident took place in international airspace,” the Dutch defence ministry said.