There's trouble brewing in The South China Sea, where Beijing has been using "scores of dredgers" to turn reefs into islands in the Spratly archipelago. Atop the new islands, China has been busy building things like cement plants and 10,000 foot airstrips capable of landing fighter jets and surveillance aircraft.

China shares contested waters in the area with the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, and the US has made it all too clear that China's reclamation efforts constitute an unacceptable attempt to "use sheer size and muscle to force countries into subordinate positions." That, along with reports that Washington is looking into options for countering China's island-building project, set up a contentious scenario that culminated in Beijing advising the US to "refrain from provocative action" in the area.

Having thus set the stage, we bring you the following clip which shows what happens when US spy planes come a little too close to China's newly created military outposts.