On Wednesday, US F-16 fighter jets took off from Osan Air Base in South Korea and approached China's air defense identification zone over the Yellow Sea during a training exercise. China responded by scrambling its own fighter jets, resulting in a brief standoff. Neither side's planes entered the other's airspace.
US and Chinese fighter jets engaged in a rare standoff over the Yellow Sea, according to media reports in South Korea. The incident on Wednesday involved around 10 US F-16s, which took off from Osan Air Base about 65km (40 miles) south of Seoul and flew west over the Yellow Sea as part of a training operation, citing South Korean military sources.
As the F-16s approached China’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ) over the Yellow Sea, Beijing responded by scrambling its own fighter jets, in what South Korea’s MBC news described as a “brief” face-off. The US planes did not enter the Chinese ADIZ and the Chinese planes did not enter the South Korean one.
The US has not released any information about Wednesday’s operation, but it is rare for its planes to approach the Chinese air defence zone over the Yellow Sea. This comes at a time when the United States has been trying to shift the focus of its troops stationed in South Korea away from North Korea to concentrate more on China. Keywords include F-16, US Air Force, Seoul, Asia-Pacific, Osan Air Base, North Korea, Yellow Sea, Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea, and First Island Chain.
