Patriot: Will Putrajaya act against China’s intrusion of our airspace?

PETALING JAYA: The incident of China’s military aircraft entering Malaysia’s airspace on May 31 is a very serious one, the National Patriots Association (Patriot) said today.

Otherwise, a senior minister of the National Security Council or the Foreign Minister should have already issued a statement within hours of the incident to register our strongest protest, its president Brig-Gen (Rtd) Datuk Mohamed Arshad Raji(pix) pointed out.

“Along with the strong statement of protest, a marching order for China’s Ambassador should have been issued,” he said in a statement.

News reports have stated that 16 China’s military aircraft flew in tactical formation to about 60 nautical miles off the coast of Sarawak at an altitude between 23,000 to 27,000 feet.

It has breached our Malaysian Maritime Zone (ZMM). Also, the altitude the foreign aircraft were flying posed a serious safety threat to our commercial aircraft flying the Kuala Lumpur-Kota Kinabalu flight path.

“China has disregarded our nation’s sovereignty. It has intruded our airspace. Issuing the strongest protest and demanding an official apology is in order. Nothing less,” Mohamed Arshad said.

“It matters not if we badly need China’s Covid vaccine, or it being our largest trading partner, or if one of our ministers viewed his counterpart as an ‘elder brother’. Our nation’s sovereignty and our national pride is at stake. Will Putrajaya do something?”