After a series of provocative incidents between U.S. and Chinese naval vessels in international waters, China released a statement denying a naval buildup in the South China Sea:
China has no plans to beef up its naval presence in the South China Sea following a confrontation earlier this month between Chinese boats and a U.S. Navy ship, an official newspaper reported Friday. The brief comment in the China Daily adds to apparent efforts by Beijing to tamp down the controversy surrounding the March 7 incident in which the USNS Impeccable was surrounded and harassed by Chinese boats. “Top commanders do not have plans to increase the military presence in the South China Sea following a confrontation earlier this month between a U.S. spy ship and five Chinese vessels,” the paper said, citing unidentified naval sources. The report gave no additional information, although it quoted government-backed Chinese academics as saying Beijing wanted to put the incident to rest. “It is time to call an end to it,” Li Jie, a senior researcher at the navy academy, was quoted as saying.
Gordon G. Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China, is among those incredulous at the lackluster American response to what they seen as a brazen violation of maritime law and tradition by China. Ever since Mahan’s The Influence of Seapower Upon History it has been generally been accepted and expected that the great powers, and indeed the superpower, would maintain dominance of the seas and continue to guarantee safe passage in international waters. Is this U.S. on the verge of sacrificing naval dominance and the legal status of international waters for the sake of political (and economic) expediency? After all, we would not want to upset our trade partner and national debt holder, right? Though the Chinese desire to extend their power and influence seems clear enough, I think what we really have here is an old fashioned spy-vs-spy drama in which China has built some new military installations and is testing out some new hardware and the U.S. would like to get a look at it. I don’t think it’s anything more than that. Still, we must be very careful about how we handle future incidents of this type, we don’t want to establish (by default or inaction) a new maritime sphere of influence for China that endangers our friends and allies in Asia. How then should the U.S. respond? We should establish and communicate clear red lines: spy-vs-spy harassment of surveillance missions may be tolerated (to a point) as the price of doing business, but standard naval missions and commercial shipping in international waters will be protected by force if necessary. China, as a responsible stakeholder in the international system, should accept these red lines or risk being seen as no better than cheap Somali pirates.
Photo: USNS Impeccable, Wikipedia
