On the 11th of this month, the Air and Space Forces Magazine reported that US Pacific Air Force Commander, Kenneth S. Wilsbach, criticized China for “unsafe” interceptions of American aircraft, alleging that US aircraft were “intercepted 10 times in a single day.”
Speaking at a conference on aerospace and cyber operations at the annual seminar of the Air & Space Forces Association (AFA), Wilsbach directed his remarks at China. He stated that Chinese pilots took “catastrophic” risks by “unsafely” intercepting US aircraft carrying out missions in the Pacific.
While Wilsbach acknowledged that US Air Force planes often fly “very close to China,” he mentioned that instances where their aircraft were “intercepted 10 times a day” are not uncommon. However, he emphasized that most of these interceptions are “safe”. Regarding incidents considered “dangerous” by the Pentagon, the US and its allies have started to “publicly identify” some of them, ostensibly to make China “realize and feel ashamed” of their aircraft’s and ships’ reckless operations. Wilsbach added that after such identifications, there hasn’t been a response from China indicating a willingness to discuss the matter.
Wilsbach expressed that the US has “no objections” to the premise of its planes being intercepted. He drew parallels with how the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) often intercepts Russian aircraft (typically strategic bombers or long-range reconnaissance planes) in Alaska’s Air Defense Identification Zone as a buffer for early warning. This zone extends beyond US airspace, and the US military emphasizes that these Russian planes do not infringe upon US airspace sovereignty. Wilsbach’s request for China was to “safely and professionally execute missions”. Shifting the topic, he then claimed he doesn’t believe that “any pilot in China has the capability of a US fighter pilot” because their training “isn’t of the same category.”
According to a report by The War Zone channel of The Drive website, after Wilsbach’s speech on the opening day of the AFA annual meeting, he participated in another session titled “Prepared to Compete, Fight, and Win in the Indo-Pacific Region”. During this session, Wilsbach downplayed China’s J-20 aircraft, stating that, compared to the capabilities of “the US and its allies and partners”, the J-20 “isn’t a dominant aircraft”. Referring to the J-20, he mentioned that “most of its technology was stolen from the US”. Despite these statements, he had previously claimed that the J-20 wasn’t “something to lose sleep over”.
However, social media users pointed out that Wilsbach’s repeated mentions of the J-20 as “not frightening” within a year did not resemble a state of insomnia but rather extreme anxiety.
Furthermore, Wilsbach expressed confidence that combining the capabilities of US aircraft with those of their allies can “counter any potential threat from the J-20”. He asserted that a coalition of multiple partner nations, “regularly training under high-threat scenarios”, would make it “very challenging for any Chinese aircraft”. Rather than comparing aircraft to aircraft, he stressed the importance of contrasting personnel training, particularly the “interoperability between the US and its allies”. Taking training exercises with South Korean allies as an example, he believes that due to the advanced training methods, China might “still be at a considerable disadvantage.”