The Chinese rammed one of our EP-3 aircraft with one of their fighters more than a decade ago. Is it back to that dangerous game?
A U.S. guided missile cruiser operating in international waters in the South China Sea was forced to take evasive action last week to avoid a collision with a Chinese warship maneuvering nearby, the U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a statement on Friday.
The incident came as the USS Cowpens was operating in the vicinity of China's only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, at a time of heightened tensions in the region following Beijing's declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone farther north in the East China Sea, a U.S. defense official said.
Normally, I'd assume that a Chinese vessel acting that way would be from their coast guard, in line with past practices of pretending that aggressive maneuvering is not a military matter--just civilian officials defending sovereign Chinese domestic territory.
But if this near-incident took place by their carrier, wouldn't any nearby Chinese ship be part of the navy escort?
Are the Chinese leaders willing to risk a clash that could spark a war? Are the Chinese leaders even in the loop as their ships play potentially deadly games?
UPDATE: The Chinese ship was one of the escorts. So I assume it was military. And confronting our ships isn't exactly a new thing, the article says. But why do it?
That said, the recent run-in holds a larger message, analysts say. The chief one may be that the US will not be able to comfortably troll the waters of the western Pacific.
“The Chinese are trying to make it clear that, if the US wants to operate in these waters, then it should be prepared to be operating under a high state of tension,” says Dean Cheng, senior research fellow for Chinese political and security affairs at the Heritage Foundation. “If the US doesn’t want tension, then it’s very simple: leave.”
Well, yes. Thank you, Mr. Obvious. China's action was deliberate and meant to intimidate, as the article notes.
But then this is kind of obtuse:
If this is the case, then to what end? After all, a majority of elites in China prefer to strengthen the bilateral relationship with the United States rather than to pursue "hawkish," hegemonic ambitions, according to a recent report from Michael Swaine, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
One possible answer is that recent PLA moves indicate that the “Chinese are now trying to establish a much greater presence in the western Pacific,” says Dr. Swaine. “In a sense, they want to convey to other countries that they are out there, they’re operating, and other people need to recognize this and abide by their desires.” ...
But that doesn’t mean the PLA “is devoted to taking over the western Pacific and ejecting the US,” says Swaine.
More likely, China is interested in establishing greater ability to deter other forces – including Japan and the US – ”from being able to prevail in possible confrontations over Taiwan and other disputed territories,” he says.
No, of course China is trying to eject us from the western Pacific. In the South China Sea, China is very clearly trying to enforce their view that virtually the entire body of water that we defend as international waters is in fact the city of Sansha, China.
Those Carnegie people are something else. Only they could look for a subtle meaning for deliberate intimidation in an area of ocean that the Chinese claim is one of their cities.
