HONG KONG — The Chinese government rejected the Pentagon’s claim that a People’s Liberation Army fighter jet had buzzed dangerously close to an American surveillance plane in international airspace, and it warned that frequent surveillance flights were risking an accident near the Chinese coast.

The statement came on Saturday in response to a Pentagon spokesman’s complaint about the air encounter, which took place Tuesday.

The Pentagon press secretary, Rear Adm. John Kirby, had said on Friday that the Chinese jet approached a United States Navy P-8 Poseidon plane, flying alongside with the planes’ wingtips less than 30 feet apart, and then performed a roll maneuver so that the American pilot could see the Chinese jet’s weapons.

The encounter was “very, very close, very dangerous,” Admiral Kirby said.

But the Chinese military bluntly rejected the accusations of risky brinkmanship on Saturday. “The Chinese pilot’s maneuvers were professional, and maintained a safe distance from the U.S. aircraft,” a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, Col. Yang Yujun, said in a statement on the ministry’s website.