The media in Australia has been going crazy over the past two days after Defence Minister Richard Marles accused China of firing flares at an Australian military helicopter over the weekend.

That sounds terrifying, right?

Well, I wonder where that poor helicopter was affronted! Maybe off the coast of Sydney? Or in the waters off Perth?

Well, no. The Aussie military aircraft was flying just a few hundred kilometers away from Beijing, actually, way up in the Yellow Sea, nearly 10,000 kilometers away from Canberra.

Why on earth would they be there? Today we’ll investigate.

This is Reports on China, I’m Andy Boreham in Shanghai. Let’s get reporting!

#australia #china #helicopter