Beijing, China

The Canadian defence minister has said that a Chinese fighter jet flew within five metres of a Canadian military plane over international waters near the coast of China, calling it "unacceptable", "dangerous" and "reckless". 

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The minister said that the Canadian surveillance plane was taking part in a United Nations operation to enforce sanctions against North Korea.  

Canada's Global News reported that the incident took place on Monday in international waters off the coast of China. However, China has not released any official statement over the allegations. 

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While speaking to the reporter, Minister Bill Blair said, "The Canadian plane was taking part in surveillance to enforce United Nations sanctions on North Korea when the incident happened on Monday." 

Blair added, "I am very concerned about the unprofessional way in which this was done. It was quite frankly dangerous and reckless." 

"And those types of behaviours are not ever acceptable and we will express that to the People's Republic of China in the most appropriate way," he further said, adding that the Chinese air force regularly interacted with planes on UN missions. 

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In June 2022, Canada's military accused Chinese warplanes of harassing its patrol aircraft as they monitored North Korean sanction evasions, sometimes forcing Canadian planes to divert from their flight paths.

In May, the Pentagon said a Chinese fighter jet carried out an "unnecessarily aggressive" manoeuvre near a US military plane over the South China Sea in international airspace. 

The encounter followed what Washington calls a recent trend of increasingly dangerous behaviour by Chinese military aircraft. 

(With inputs from agencies)

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