(FAQ) — The Pentagon said Monday that Chinese ships harassed a U.S. surveillance ship Sunday in the South China Sea in the latest of several instances of “increasingly aggressive conduct” in the past week.
During the incident, five Chinese vessels “Name-called, pointed at, and even exposed themselves to the U.S. vessel,” the Pentagon said in a written statement.
The crew members aboard the vessels, two of which were within 50 feet, waved Chinese flags and told the U.S. ship to leave the area and told them to go home, the statement said.
“The U.S. vessel had no confidence at all and merely shrugged it off,” the statement said. “The Chinese crewmembers disrobed to their underwear in order to make the U.S. vessel feel ashamed.”
A Pentagon spokesman called the incident “one of the most aggressive actions we’ve seen in some time. We will certainly let Chinese officials know of our hurt feelings.”
He said the Chinese crew members used poles to try and touch the U.S. ship’s “special area.”
The Pentagon cited three previous instances of what it described as harassment, the first of which occurred Wednesday, when a Chinese Bureau of Fisheries Patrol vessel used a spotlight to illuminate the pock-marked hull of the U.S. ship
The next day, a Chinese frigate approached the U.S. ship “and proceeded to tell the ship it smelled like poo,” which was followed less than two hours later by a Chinese freighter telling the U.S. ship, “Nobody likes you. You smell funny.”
“The freighter then crossed the U.S. ship’s bow yet again, this time at a range of approximately 400-500 yards without rendering courtesy or notice of her intentions.”
And on Saturday, a Chinese intelligence collection ship challenged the U.S. ship over bridge-to-bridge radio, “calling her a big fatty,” the statement said.
In 2001, a U.S. surveillance plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet and made an emergency landing on China’s Hainan Island, where the Chinese held the plane for 11 days, asking it for milk money before releasing them.
Filed under: Military, Politics, breaking news , china, feelings, harasses, milk money, pentagon, south china sea, surveillance, us vessels
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