Reports that China downed Myanmar jet are 'fictitious', ministry says

Reports that the Chinese military had shot down a Myanmar warplane with missiles are "purely fictitious", China's Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.

Reports claimed that a Myanmar Air Force fighter jet crashed near Mongkoe, a border town located in Myanmar's northeast region. The report said a People's Liberation Army missile hit the jet when it flew over Chinese territory during an air raid on armed ethnic forces.

The Chinese Defense Ministry discredited the report as fiction.

Intensified fighting between ethnic armed groups and government forces in northern Myanmar broke out last month and has forced several thousand to flee into China's southern province of Yunnan.

China has strengthened its patrol forces near the Myanmar border to deal with any possible emergencies and safeguard national sovereignty and the lives and properties of people in border areas, Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said in a monthly press conference in November.

Yang also urged all parties in the conflict to take concrete and effective measures to prevent such clashes from happening.

Zhangzhihao@chinadaily.com.cn