WASHINGTON, D.C.: The United States on Tuesday accused China of orchestrating a 'concerted' campaign of dangerous and provocative air force maneuvers against American military planes in international airspace, warning that such moves could spark an inadvertent conflict between the two powers.

The Pentagon said aggressive tactics by Chinese aircraft threatened US planes flying over the East and South China Seas, tallying more than 180 such incidents since the fall of 2021, 'more in the past two years than in the decade before that,' Ely Ratner, assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told a news conference.