"It won't be long before somebody gets hurt," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters. "That's the concern with these unsafe and unprofessional intercepts."

On Saturday, the Pentagon said that a Chinese warship forced a US naval destroyer to take evasive action in order to avoid a collision. That incident came less than two weeks after a Chinese fighter jet flew directly across the path of an oncoming US warplane.

Kirby said the actions were "part and parcel of an increasing level of aggressiveness" by China's military.