ASPI’s Military Analyst Malcolm Davis says the Chinese fighter jet dropping flares on an Australian Navy helicopter is an “extremely aggressive act”.

A Chinese fighter jet recently dropped flares in the flight path of an Australian Navy helicopter in a dangerous mid-air confrontation.

“It’s very unprofessional, very unsafe, as the Defence Minister Richard Marles was saying yesterday,” Mr Davis told Sky News Australia.

“There’s no way that this sort of act could be unintentional or accidental.

“That fighter pilot in that Chinese J-10 fighter knew exactly what they were doing – they were intending to drop those flares in the flight path of that Seahawk helicopter, and that’s an extremely aggressive act.”