Experts said a near-miss between a U.S. Navy destroyer and a Chinese warship in the disputed South China Sea earlier this week could have dire implications for American allies and partners operating in the waterway and elsewhere — including Japan — after the U.S. confirmed that photos showing just how close the two vessels came to colliding were “legitimate.”
A U.S. defense official told The Japan Times on Wednesday that the pictures, apparently taken by a U.S. spy plane and published on the gCaptain commercial marine and offshore energy industry website a day earlier, were not released by the U.S. Navy.
It was not clear how the website received the pictures, but a leak was not out of the question.