By Zachary Keck
“If the subject intruding into the zone disregarded any warning, our pilots have the right to shoot it down.”
In an interview with China’s state media on Tuesday, a PLA Air Force general warned that Beijing has a right to shoot down hostile aircraft within its recently created East China Sea Air Defense Identification System (ADIZ).
According to South China Morning Post, PLA Air Force major general Qiao Liang explained in an interview that the new ADIZ “provides communication and air force identification between countries, allowing them to identify whether the opposite side is hostile. But if the subject intruding into the zone disregarded any warning, our pilots have the right to shoot it down.”
SCMP said the interview was with China News Service, China’s second largest state-run news agency.According to its Wikipedia page, China News Service caters primarily to Chinese living in Taiwan, Macau and other places abroad.
Qiao did in fact give an interview with China’s News Service on Tuesday, although The Diplomat has not been able to track down the precise article that the SCMP report references. Interestingly, the English-language website contained portions of Qiao’s interview, although his quotes on this website are more conciliatory in nature.
Read the full story at The Diplomat