The US military claims the Chinese jet passed directly in front of the nose of the US Air Force plane in international airspace during the intercept on 26 May.
The US has said a Chinese fighter jet performed an “unnecessarily aggressive” manoeuvre during an intercept over the South China Sea.
In a statement, the US military command responsible for the Indo-Pacific said the Chinese J-16 aircraft carried out the manoeuvre last week and forced the US RC-135 plane to fly through its wake turbulence.
Wake turbulence is the disturbance in the atmosphere caused by an aircraft as it passes through the air, similar to the wake of a boat travelling through water.
“The United States will continue to fly, sail, and operate – safely and responsibly – wherever international law allows,” the statement said.
Video shows a fighter jet passing in front of the US plane’s nose and the cockpit of the RC-135 shaking in the turbulence.
The encounter followed what the United States has called a recent trend of increasingly dangerous behaviour by Beijing military aircraft.
The incident took place before China snubbed a request by Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin to meet on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue Asian security summit in Singapore this week.