China's defense ministry on Tuesday denied that Chinese missiles had hit a Myanmar warplane, confirming to the Global Times that the news is "purely fictitious."
A widely circulated news report on Chinese Internet claimed that a Myanmar Air Force fighter jet crashed near the Sino-Burmese border on Sunday. The report said the jet was hit by a Chinese missile when it flew over Chinese territory during its airborne raid of armed ethnic forces.
Some analysts claim the PLA artillery fired warning shots at Myanmar jets that entered China's airspace on Sunday, and that the fleeing jet accidentally bumped into the shells, which led to its crash. The defense ministry rebuffed the analysis as fiction.
Fighting rages in northern Myanmar as Myanmar Air Force jets have bombed Mongkoe for four straight days. Myanmar's Kachinland News reported that a Myanmar fighter crashed on Sunday, saying it was not clear whether the crash was due to a technical failure or an attack.
