It looks like the Chinese are upping their reaction to the US Navy’s freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea:
This Navy image obtained by naval website gCaptain.com shows a confrontation between the USS Decatur, left, and a Chinese destroyer in the South China Sea, Sunday, Sept. 30, 2018.
Photos of an encounter between a Navy guided-missile destroyer and Chinese warship shed light on just how close the ships came to colliding Sunday in the South China Sea.
Naval website gCaptain.com published a series of photos Tuesday showing the USS Decatur and the People’s Republic of China destroyer Luyang passing each other during the confrontation. The Chinese ship appears to veer close to the Decatur before the U.S. ship pulls away to avoid a collision.
A Navy official confirmed to Stars and Stripes on Wednesday that the photos are legitimate, but said it is unknown how the website got access to the images, which were not publicly released. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but I hope the Navy has plenty of video cameras on board to record any possible collision. This is because if a collision was to happen the Chinese would blame the US and then point to the Navy’s track record of two deadly collisions with civilian vessels in recent years.
With that said I doubt the Chinese would use one of their warships to collide with a US Navy ship. I would suspect they would have one of their civilian vessels, like a fishing ship collide with a US Navy ship and then blame the US to anger public opinion within China against the US.
As the Chinese continue to destroy the ocean floor to build man made islands to build military bases and over fish the South China Sea, the world’s leading environmental groups have next to nothing to say about this. The reason for this is not surprising and an example of how phony many of these major environmental organizations are:
So why didn’t they utter a peep about China’s degradation of the South China Sea?
Knowing when to keep their mouths shut seems to be the price these organizations must pay to enjoy the good will of Beijing. It’s one thing to offer respectful criticism over Chinese fishing subsidies within the bounds that the Communist Party tolerates as a social safety valve. But it’s another matter entirely to condemn the crimes that China is committing in the South China Sea, a position that would infuriate the Politburo.
Greenpeace, Conservation International and the WWF all have offices in China. The WWF’s programs to protect the giant panda drive donations globally, and well-heeled do-gooders pay $10,000 per person for panda safaris in Sichuan. Mr. Gomez of the University of the Philippines laments, “Sad but true, money talks.”
As the WWF notes on its website, it operates in China “at the invitation of the Chinese government.” But invitations can be withdrawn. With dozens of Chinese nationals employed on the mainland by the WWF, Greenpeace and Conservation International, the NGOs’ operations in the Middle Kingdom are hostage to the whims of the Party. [The Wall Street Journal]
The other thing not mentioned in this article is that if groups like Sea Shepherd began operations to interfere with the Chinese dredging and overfishing of the South China Sea the Chinese government would likely have little tolerance for it and imprison the protesters.
Compare the reaction to Japanese whaling of non-endangered minke whales that is closely regulated by an international body to the Chinese destruction of the South China Sea in violation of an international court ruling. The hypocrisy from major environmental organizations is astounding.
It seems the domestic political situation in China would force them to take action against any blockade of their artificial islands in the South China Sea. China’s advanced ballistic missile capability is how they would likely respond. Before any blockade is called for I hope people fully understand the risks:
Rex Tillerson
Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon chief, didn’t get where he is by being nice to China. When Beijing tried to force his company to abandon a gas exploration project in the waters off Vietnam in 2008, ExxonMobil showed it the finger. BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and several others caved to Chinese pressure. ExxonMobil is still there, drilling on a Vietnamese license in waters also claimed by China.
Is Tillerson about to do the same on behalf of the United States? On Wednesday, the secretary of state-designate seemed ready to give China the finger again. He called on the incoming Trump administration to deny China access to the seven artificial island bases it has built in the southern part of the South China Sea.
In response to a question about whether he would support a more aggressive posture in the South China Sea, he told his Senate confirmation hearing, “We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and, second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.” The jaws of the Asia policy-watching community hit the floor. [Foreign Policy]
You can read the rest at the link, but the author thinks Tillerson may have misspoke and meant blockading any action by the Chinese to build a base on the Scarborough Shoal which would be less dangerous, but still quite a risky strategy to implement if China is committed to forcing the issue. It seems it would be a tough sell to the American people to risk war with China over the Scarborough Shoal.
The other wild card in all of this is what if President Duerte in the Philippines cuts a deal with China to let them build on the shoal which is claimed by the Philippines?
This looks like something the Chinese had planned as a provocation since they shadowed the US ship waited for the drones to emerge from the water and then snatched one. They also made sure to snatch a drone that did not have sensitive US military technology which could have really increased the scale of a possible US response to this action:
This file picture shows the Chinese Navy frigate Daqing 576 approaching the waterfront in San Diego, Calif., with a U.S. aircraft carrier on the North Island base in the background in December. The Three People’s Liberation Army (Navy) ships were visiting San Diego as part of a routine port visit. [USA Today]
China “unlawfully” seized an unmanned US naval probe in international waters in the South China Sea, the Pentagon said Friday, a move sure to heighten tensions around Beijing’s military presence in the disputed area.
The underwater vehicle was taken around 50 nautical miles (90 kilometers) northwest off Subic Bay in the Philippines late Thursday in a non-violent incident, said Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.
The event unfolded as the civilian-crewed USNS Bowditch was retrieving a pair of “naval gliders” that routinely collect information on water temperatures, salinity and sea clarity.
A Chinese Dalang-III class submarine rescue ship then stopped within 500 yards (meters) of the Bowditch and snatched one of the probes. The Americans safely hoisted the other one back onto their ship.
Davis said he could not recall another time when something like this has happened, and the Pentagon issued a statement calling on Beijing to “immediately” return the probe that it had “unlawfully seized.”
The US personnel “were asking over bridge-to-bridge radio to please leave it there,” Davis said.
Other than a brief acknowledgment that it had received the message, the Chinese ship did not respond.
“The only thing they said after they were sailing off into the distance was: ‘We are returning to normal operations,'” Davis said.
Washington has issued a formal request through diplomatic channels to ask for the probe back.
“It is ours. It is clearly marked as ours. We would like it back, and we would like this not to happen again,” Davis said.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said China had acted unlawfully.
“The UUV (unmanned underwater vehicle) is a sovereign immune vessel of the United States. We call upon China to return our UUV immediately, and to comply with all of its obligations under international law,” Cook said in a statement. [AFP]
Here is what they stole:
Davis said the seized vessel is off-the-shelf technology that is commercially available for about $150,000. Data it gathers are unclassified and can be used to help submarines navigate and determine sonar ranges in murky waters.
You can read the rest at the link, but here is what Donald Trump had to say:
China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters – rips it out of water and takes it to China in unprecedented act.
Beijing hit back in the diplomatic spat over its seizure of a US Navy drone in the South China Sea after Donald Trump claimed in a message on Twitter that China has stolen the device.
Chinese officials had earlier indicated there would be a “smooth” resolution of the diplomatic incident, but after the President-elect’s tweet, they accused Washington of “hyping up” the issue. [UK Independent]
Stealing seems pretty accurate to me, did the Chinese want him to say they are borrowing the drone?
This is pretty significant because with the Japanese participating in training patrols in the South China Sea it may encourage other countries to do so as well which would only further erode Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea:
China is “disappointed to the point of despair” with Japan’s conduct in the South China Sea, it said Monday, after Tokyo announced it may set up training patrols with the US in the contested region.
China asserts sovereignty over almost all of the strategically vital waters in the face of rival claims from its Southeast Asian neighbours, and has rapidly turned reefs in the area into artificial islands capable of hosting military planes.
In a speech last week Japanese defence minister Tomomi Inada called China’s actions a “deliberate attempt to unilaterally change the status quo, achieve a fait accompli, and undermine the prevailing norms”, according to a transcript released by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Inada said Japan would increase its engagement in the South China Sea through joint training cruises with the US Navy, exercises with regional navies and capacity-building assistance to coastal nations. [AFP]
You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see what the ROK will do if more countries come forward to conduct these training patrols in the SCS.
It sounds like Duterte may be trying to bring his country more closely into the orbits of Russia and China in a bid to keep control over their contested South China Sea islands:
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday he won’t allow government forces to conduct joint patrols of disputed waters near the South China Sea with foreign powers, apparently scrapping a deal his predecessor reached with the U.S. military earlier this year.
Duterte also said he was considering acquiring defense equipment from Russia and China. The Philippines has traditionally leaned on the U.S., its longtime treaty ally, and other Western allies for its security needs.
The remarks were the latest from a Philippine president who has had an uneasy relationship with the U.S. but also has tried to mend relations with China strained over South China Sea disputes.
Duterte said he wanted only Philippine territorial waters, up to 12 nautical miles offshore, to be patrolled by Filipino forces, but not other offshore areas that are contested. He added he opposes Filipino forces accompanying foreign powers like the U.S. and China in joint patrols which could entangle the Philippines in hostilities. [Associated Press]
Fortunately the article that sparked the controversy was just a Chinese style Onion click bait site which I am not going to provide a link to. However, it shows the ridiculousness of China’s recent territorial claims that people were actually taking it seriously for a while:
Even though the map and article were someone’s attempt at a little fun, there is a larger point. China’s use of maps, passports and other mapfare-style methods of pushing a narrative of rightful territorial claims whether over Taiwan or the 9 or actually 10-dash-line in the South China Sea and others areas has been part of Beijing’s toolkit for sometime now. The fact that none of us at the conference were shocked speaks volumes to the now ingrained perception of China on the international stage as a power bent on changing the status-quo—no matter what the cost. A reputation as some sort of rogue state is a tough thing in international politics to change—and it’s something Beijing should bare in mind. [National Interest]
