China is growing more aggressive against the U.S. military around Taiwan and in the South China Sea, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Monday, warning Beijing that “it won’t be long before somebody gets hurt.”
The remarks from the White House come after the U.S. Navy on Monday criticized the Chinese military over an “unsafe” maneuver by one of its ships crossing the path of a U.S. warship at just 150 yards of distance in the Taiwan Strait.
“There was absolutely no need for the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] to act as aggressively as they did,” Kirby said, speaking at the White House Press briefing Monday, referring to the formal name of the Chinese military.
“These are part and parcel of an increasing level of aggressiveness by the PRC’s military, particularly in the area of the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea,” Kirby said.
The confrontation in the Taiwan Strait on Monday followed an incident over the South China Sea late last month, when a Chinese fighter jet came dangerously close to an American reconnaissance aircraft. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command criticized the Chinese as carrying out an “unnecessarily aggressive maneuver.”
Kirby said the two incidents point to a “growing aggressiveness” by Beijing and pointed out that while air and maritime intercepts happen, including on the part of U.S., China was acting outside the bounds of international laws and “rules of the road.”
“These two that you saw recently, and they have happened with more frequency than we’d like, not all of them are unsafe and unprofessional, but these two were.”
Kirby said the U.S. is urging China to “make better decisions about how they operate in international airspace, and sea space.”
“We’re going to keep standing up for those rules of the road,” he said.
Still, Kirby said the U.S. is committed to keeping lines of communication open with the Chinese to “make it clear how unacceptable those particular intercepts are,” even as Beijing has rebuffed efforts to establish a crisis military-to-military channel with the U.S.
Beijing also rejected an official meeting between Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the Chinese Minister of Defense Li Shangfu, during a defense summit in Singapore over the weekend.
Austin, speaking with reporters while he is on travel to India and France, called Chinese naval ships maneuvers “extremely dangerous.”
“I call upon the PRC’s leadership to really do the right things, to reign in that kind of conduct because I think accidents can happen that could cause things to spiral out of control,” he said.