The Global Times, a Chinese state-owned news agency today issued a stern warning to the Australian Government after a Royal Australian Air Force surveillance plane carried out “freedom of navigation” exercises over international waters above the South China Sea in November.
The Global Times editorial stated:
“It would be a shame if one day a plane fell from the sky and it happened to be Australian.”
Is this an unfortunately euphemistic statement with an element of ‘lost in translation’, given the several planes that have happened to “fall out of the sky” (usually with the help of a bomb or a missile) over the last couple of years? What’s more, perhaps a “shame” isn’t quite the right word for what it would be if, let’s say, a plane did “fall out of the sky”?
Could the Global Times be issuing a real threat that should be taken seriously, or it is perhaps the typical sabre rattling we hear from China from time to time when they want to feel like a world power?
While the meaning of this strange statement remains something of mystery, we’re giving it XYZ’s quote of the day for 16 December 2015.
Photo by underexposed949 
