The U.S. is concerned Chinese jets may engage in further risky intercepts of its military aircraft, even after starting talks aimed at avoiding such encounters, the new commander of U.S. air forces in the Pacific said.

A Chinese fighter jet flew within 20 feet of a U.S. P-8 Poseidon aircraft flying at more than 400 miles an hour near Hainan Island — China’s gateway to the contested South China Sea — on Aug. 19, an encounter that the Pentagon described as “unsafe and unprofessional.”

“I never say never,” General Lori Robinson, 55, said when asked if talks meant such behavior would cease. “What’s important is that we do start the dialogue and that we do come to an understanding of what a traditional intercept is.”

…“What the U.S. is doing is totally within their rights under international law, and the Chinese undermine their own arguments when they send their surveillance vessels into the U.S.’s EEZ,” said Richard Bitzinger, coordinator of the Military Transformations Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.