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Destroyer now escorting ship involved in US-China incident
China’s Defense Ministry is demanding that the U.S. Navy end surveillance missions off China’s southern coast after a weekend confrontation between an American vessel and Chinese ships. In its first public comment on the issue, the ministry repeated earlier Chinese statements that the unarmed U.S. ship was operating illegally inside China’s exclusive economic zone. “The Chinese side’s carrying out of routine enforcement and safeguarding measures within its exclusive economic zone was entirely appropriate and legal,” ministry spokesman Huang Xueping said in a statement faxed to reporters today. “We demand the United States respect our legal interests and security concerns and take effective measures to prevent a recurrence of such incidents.”

The Navy on Wednesday assigned a destroyer escort to the ship that narrowly missed colliding with the Chinese vessels Sunday. A defense official, speaking on background, confirmed Wednesday that the destroyer USS Chung-Hoon is keeping a close eye on the surveillance ship Impeccable, which continues to operate in the South China Sea.
Yes. It's American...
Rear Admiral Gordon Pai'ea Chung-Hoon was born on July 25, 1910, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The second youngest of five Chung-Hoon children, he attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in May 1934. While at the Naval Academy, he was a valued member of the Navy Football team. He is a recipient of the Navy Cross and Silver Star for conspicuous gallantry and extraordinary heroism as Commanding Officer of USS Sigsbee (DD 502) from May 1944 to October 1945. In the spring of 1945, Sigsbee assisted in the destruction of 20 enemy planes while screening a carrier strike force off the Japanese island of Kyushu. On April 14, 1945, while on radar picket station off Okinawa, a kamikaze crashed into Sigsbee, reducing her starboard engine to five knots and knocking out the ship's port engine and steering control. Despite the damage, Admiral Chung-Hoon, then a Commander, valiantly kept his anti-aircraft batteries delivering "prolonged and effective fire" against the continuing enemy air attack while simultaneously directing the damage control efforts that allowed Sigsbee to make port under her own power. After retiring from the Navy in 1959, Rear Admiral Chung-Hoon was appointed by William Quinn, Hawaii’s first elected governor since statehood, to serve as director of the state Department of Agriculture. Rear Admiral Chung-Hoon died in July 1979.
The Impeccable, which is unarmed and manned by civilian mariners, deploys and tows sonar equipment used to locate and track submarines. American officials contend the ship has been careful to stay in international waters.

The United States says five Chinese vessels approached the Impeccable, ignoring requests to keep their distance, and that one got so close that the Americans employed fire hoses to repel it.

The new U.S. effort to protect the ship came as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi conferred at the State Department, their second meeting in less than a month. “The important point of agreement coming out of my discussions with Minister Yang is that we must work hard in the future to avoid such incidents and to avoid this particular incident having consequences that are unforeseen,” Clinton told reporters. Yang, who did not speak after the meeting , is to meet today with President Barack Obama and his national security adviser, retired Marine Gen. James Jones.

On Capitol Hill, Rep. Randy Forbes, a Chesapeake Republican who is co-chairman of the Congressional China Caucus, said he expects to introduce a resolution today condemning the Chinese “harassment” of U.S. forces. Sunday’s incident was one of a series, and the close approach “clearly a deliberate action,” he said.

Forbes praised the Navy’s assignment of a warship to protect the Impeccable but added that Congress must send “a clear, loud message” that the United States will protect the right of its ships to operate in international waters.

The latest incident appears to be “part of a wider and dangerous cat-and-mouse game between U.S. and Chinese submarines and their hunters,” Hans M. Kristensen, a nuclear weapons analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, wrote Tuesday on the group’s Web site. Kristensen said it’s likely there have been more close encounters, so far unreported by either country. “We don’t know what’s going on below the surface,” he asserted.

The Obama administration is seeking Chinese cooperation on a host of foreign policy matters, including efforts to confront Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs, stabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan and help sta nch the worldwide economic meltdown.
Posted by: tu3031 2009-03-12
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=264800