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| China-Japan-Koreas | |
| Chinese Try to Stop U.S. Warship in Int'l Waters | |
| 2013-12-13 | |
| Bill Gertz A Chinese naval vessel tried to force a U.S. guided missile warship to stop in international waters recently, causing a tense military standoff in the latest case of Chinese maritime harassment, according to defense officials. The guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens, which recently took part in disaster relief operations in the Philippines, was confronted by Chinese warships in the South China Sea near Beijing’s new aircraft carrier Liaoning, according to officials familiar with the incident. “On December 5th, while lawfully operating in international waters in the South China Sea, USS Cowpens and a PLA Navy vessel had an encounter that required maneuvering to avoid a collision,” a Navy official said. “This incident underscores the need to ensure the highest standards of professional seamanship, including communications between vessels, to mitigate the risk of an unintended incident or mishap.” A State Department official said the U.S. government issued protests to China in both Washington and Beijing in both diplomatic and military channels. The Cowpens was conducting surveillance of the Liaoning at the time. The carrier had recently sailed from the port of Qingdao on the northern Chinese coast into the South China Sea.
According to the officials, the Cowpens was conducting a routine operation done to exercise its freedom of navigation near the Chinese carrier when the incident occurred about a week ago. The encounter was the type of incident that senior Pentagon officials recently warned could take place as a result of heightened tensions in the region over China’s declaration of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea. The Liaoning, China’s first carrier that was refitted from an old Soviet carrier, and four warships recently conducted their first training maneuvers in the South China Sea. The carrier recently docked at the Chinese naval port of Hainan on the South China Sea. Defense officials have said China’s imposition of the ADIZ is aimed primarily at curbing surveillance flights in the zone, which China’s military regards as a threat to its military secrets. The U.S. military conducts surveillance flights with EP-3 aircraft and long-range RQ-4 Global Hawk drones. In addition to the Liaoning, Chinese warships in the flotilla include two missile destroyers, the Shenyang and the Shijiazhuang, and two missile frigates, the Yantai and the Weifang. Rick Fisher, a China military affairs expert, said it is likely that the Chinese deliberately staged the incident as part of a strategy of pressuring the United States. “They can afford to lose an LST [landing ship] as they have about 27 of them, but they are also usually armed with one or more twin 37 millimeter cannons, which at close range could heavily damage a lightly armored U.S. Navy destroyer,” said Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center. Most Chinese Navy large combat ships would be out-ranged by the 127-millimeter guns deployed on U.S. cruisers, except China’s Russian-made Sovremenny-class ships and Beijing’s new Type 052D destroyers that are armed with 130-millimeter guns. The encounter appears to be part of a pattern of Chinese political signaling that it will not accept the presence of American military power in its East Asian theater of influence, Fisher said. “China has spent the last 20 years building up its Navy and now feels that it can use it to obtain its political objectives,” he said. Fisher said that since early 2012 China has gone on the offensive in both the South China and East China Seas. “In this early stage of using its newly acquired naval power, China is posturing and bullying, but China is also looking for a fight, a battle that will cow the Americans, the Japanese, and the Filipinos,” he said. To maintain stability in the face of Chinese military assertiveness, Fisher said the United States and Japan should seek an armed peace in the region by heavily fortifying the Senkaku Islands and the rest of the island chain they are part of. “The U.S. and Japan should also step up their rearmament of the Philippines,” Fisher said. The Cowpens incident is the most recent example of Chinese naval aggressiveness toward U.S. ships. The U.S. intelligence-gathering ship, USNS Impeccable, came under Chinese naval harassment from a China Maritime Surveillance ship, part of Beijing’s quasi-military maritime patrol craft, in June. During that incident, the Chinese ship warned the Navy ship it was operating illegally despite sailing in international waters. The Chinese demanded that the ship first obtain permission before sailing in the area that was more than 100 miles from China’s coast. The U.S. military has been stepping up surveillance of China’s naval forces, including the growing submarine fleet, as part of the U.S. policy of rebalancing forces to the Pacific. The Impeccable was harassed in March 2009 by five Chinese ships that followed it and sprayed it with water hoses in an effort to thwart its operations. A second spy ship, the USNS Victorious, also came under Chinese maritime harassment several years ago. Adm. Samuel Locklear, when asked last summer about increased Chinese naval activities near Guam and Hawaii in retaliation for U.S. ship-based spying on China, said the dispute involves different interpretations of controlled waters. Locklear said in a meeting with reporters in July, “We believe the U.S. position is that those activities are less constrained than what the Chinese believe.” China is seeking to control large areas of international waters—claiming they are part of its United Nations-defined economic exclusion zone—that Locklear said cover “most of the major sea lines of communication” near China and are needed to remain free for trade and shipping. Locklear, who is known for his conciliatory views toward the Chinese military, sought to play down recent disputes. When asked if the Chinese activities were troubling, he said: “I would say it’s not provocative certainly. I’d say that in the Asia-Pacific, in the areas that are closer to the Chinese homeland, that we have been able to conduct operations around each other in a very professional and increasingly professional manner.” | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #13 More ... * TOPIX > [Town Hall = Yahoo News] PATRICK BUCHANAN: ARE THE SENKAKUS WORTH A WAR? Gee whiz, I dunno - IS AMERICA = AMERIKA LOSING GUAM-WESTPAC, HAWAII-EASTPAC + 1/2 OF CONUS-NORAM TO CHINA FOR "LIVING SPACE" WORTH THE OWG + GLOBALISM THAT AMERS DIDN'T VOTE ON NOR BEEN ASKED TO??? WHUT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG!? D *** NG IT - I'M TORN. * RELATED SAME > ... > [Heritage Foundation] CHINA'S INCREASINGLY AGGRESSIVE STANCE TOWARDS ITS TERRITORIAL CLAIMS. > [National Business Review = NBR] WHAT COULD HAPPEN TO CENTRAL ASIA IFF ALL THE AMERICAN TROOPS LEAVE? * DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > WHY IS CHINA FEARED? RESURGENCE, PRIDE, AND UNCERTAINTY | HUFFPO. * WAFF > CHINA'S AIR ZONE ANNOUNCEMENT WAS JUST THE BEGINNING, of a larger, broader,pre-determined/calculated Regional + Geopol Strategy. D *** NGED "LONG MARCHES"! Shaking foot-long tuna sub angrily. * SAME > [War Scenarios]POSTER SURVEY-OPINION: CHINA VERSUS US - NUKES ONLY. * SAME > CHINA PROVIDES NUCLEAR PROTECTION TO UKRAINE [ + Kazakhistan]. Ditto to anti-Govt, pro-independence, etc. armed factions andor fifth column elements, etc. in OKINAWA? JAPAN "RED ARMY"? MUSLIM MINDANAO? GUAM? HAWAII? ...@ETAL??? POLITICS IS POLITICS, CORRECT??? versus * JAPAN HERALD > JAPAN BATTLES RISING TIDE OF CHINESE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. No need to wage NucWar - CONQUER DEMOGRAPHICALY + ECON VIA SEX + "BIRTH TOURISM"/// |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2013-12-13 20:15 |
| #12 The Captain of the PLAN vessel must have a fetish for suicide missions, as his ship is likely no match for the COWPENS. Japanese medias repor are fearful that a Nippon war agz China could break out in January 2014 = Early Spring 2014, as neither side has shown willingness to compromise or make concessions - as a reminder, many MSM-Net Perts + Bloggers/Posters believe that such a conflict could easily devolve into de facto Nuclear War, most likely Limited Nuclear War or Limited Tactical Nuclear War. * E.G. CHINESE MILITARY FORUM BLOGGER [paraph] > opined that the Diaoyutai Islands [Senkakus]represents a vital passage to the Taiwan Straits - iff there is war + US, Japan intervenes, it will be a key or vital strategic location for China to block agz such military intervention, espec as from the powerful Japan-based USN 7th Fleet. IFF CHINA + PLA NAVAL, AIR POWER CAN CONTROL THE AREA, THE DIPLOMATIC OR MILITARY-LED UNIFICATION OF MAINLAND CHINA WID TAIWAN PROVINCE COULD BECOME A MATTER OF ONLY A FEW WEEKS. IMO the Blogger opinion above once again shows that the Diaoyu/Senkakus dispute is really covertly about TAIWAN = CHINA'S EQUIVALENT OF "PEARL HARBOR/NORFOLK" HQS [overseas USDOD CentComs], i.e. China's "post-US", "Mahanist", "future World #1 Global Superpower-style "strategic access" + China-specific "Manifest Destiny". ALSO GOOD = CONSISTENT WID OWG ANTI-US GLOBALISM WHERE THE US = GREAT POWERS MUST UNILATERALLY REDUCE OR GIVE UP POWER-N-INFLUENECE TO LESSORS SO THAT THE LATTER CAN RISE IN RIGHTEOUS GLOBALIST PARITY. * Lest we fergit, E.G. TOPIX + WORLD NEWS [old] > THE RISE OF THE REST. From NON-WASP-ISH, NON-AMERICAN/AMERIKAN SEXY SLINKY HOLLYWOOD BABES TO "THE GREAT GAME" OF GLOBAL GEOPOLITICS" + OWG GLOBAL FEDERAL UNIONS. ARISE, THEY SAY, ARISE .... |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2013-12-13 18:49 |
| #11 TV news is picking up this story, so regular folks may finally start hearing what we have been talking about for years. Fox News |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2013-12-13 12:32 |
| #10 Spratleys, DIY ADIZ, playing chicken with USN vessels, New version of Mare Nostrum. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2013-12-13 12:13 |
| #9 Welcome to Chinese version of the Cold War. ROK Marines not ANGLICO Did ROK infiltration exercises off Ulleung-do in mid-January/February. Tough bastards. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2013-12-13 11:31 |
| #8 The Chinese know they have a push over leader they are facing. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2013-12-13 11:26 |
| #7 Spent many a cold nights w/the ROK Marines in ANGLICO. Pound for pound toughest dudes I've ever seen - ROK Marines not ANGLICO :) |
| Posted by: Bangkok Billy 2013-12-13 10:25 |
| #6 Got it this morning from a friend on an exercise in the ROK. Nearly fell outta my combat swivel chair. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2013-12-13 10:16 |
| #5 That is some f'd up parachuting right there. I didn't have too many jumps (about 30) but I've never seen anything like that. Guess because I never jumped with any ME asshats. |
| Posted by: Bangkok Billy 2013-12-13 10:08 |
| #4 Lil sump'm vir ja Billy ;-) |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2013-12-13 09:51 |
| #3 It's pretty simple - the ChiComs are playing chicken except they won't blink. They WILL change the facts on the ground (air/water) and we can't do a darn thing about it. They have one area to focus on - we have many. Who do think will win? |
| Posted by: Bangkok Billy 2013-12-13 09:40 |
| #2 And when the open fire and sink one of ours....what then ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2013-12-13 09:22 |
| #1 Ahhhh the fruits of "smart diplomacy" continue to ripen. Hope there was a sub in the area too. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2013-12-13 09:11 |