BEIJING — Was it a test of President Obama? A military game of “cat and mouse”? Or a potentially hazardous confrontation with echoes of the Cold War?
As China and the U.S. traded new accusations Tuesday over this week’s incident in which Chinese vessels harassed a U.S. Navy ship, nearly causing a collision at sea, experts on China tried to decipher just how serious the episode was.
“It seems that when a new (U.S.) administration comes in, suddenly these incidents pop up,” said Hans Kristensen, a specialist on nuclear arms and Chinese military affairs at the Federation of American Scientists.
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He and other experts drew parallels with the 2001 collision of a Chinese plane with a U.S. surveillance jet, which posed George W. Bush’s first major foreign policy crisis as president. This time around, Kristensen said, China’s decision to send five ships to intercept the USNS Impeccable, an unarmed surveillance ship, may have been a demonstration of military might intended to assert China’s dominance of the South China Sea — and gauge how the Obama administration would react.
U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said Tuesday that China recently has become “more militarily aggressive.” He called the incident Sunday the most serious brush with China since 2001. One of the Chinese vessels came within 25 feet of the Impeccable, then other ships veered into its path when it tried to withdraw. Contributing: Associated Press. Bad parallels seen in Chinese naval clash By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY
The aggressive behavior of China can be judged during the visit of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Beijing in which she begged the Chinese to continue to buy the US T-Bonds. The “Middle Kingdom” handed a list of “to dos” to Ms. Clinton which included the request to stop destabilizing South Asia and bring peace to Afghanistan.
“I think the debate is still on in China whether, as their military power increases, they will be used for good or for pushing people around,” Blair told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Ma Zhaoxu, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said the American ship was breaking international and Chinese laws by sailing so close to China’s coast. He denied China had done anything wrong and said the Pentagon’s claims of harassment were “totally unacceptable to China.”
The Pentagon said the incident took place outside China’s sovereign waters, which the United Nations defines as 12 nautical miles beyond a country’s coast. However, Ma reiterated China’s claim that the U.S. needs permission to patrol within its so-called exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles out from its coast into the area where Sunday’s incident took place.
The incident comes at a time when many Chinese want their government to assert its military strength more forcefully. Tong Zeng, a Beijing activist who has pressured the government to assert its sovereignty over disputed islands in the East China Sea, described China’s conduct in the Impeccable incident as “normal.”
Tong said that, because of better technology, U.S. ships are able to conduct surveillance from far greater distances than before. The Impeccable was equipped with anti-submarine technology, and the incident took place about 75 miles south of Hainan Island, where China has been expanding a submarine base.
“In the past, China’s policy on the sovereignty issue was too soft,” agreed Yan Xuetong, a professor of international relations at Beijing’s Tsinghua University. “Our foreign policy must protect our national interest, not just economic interests,” Yan said.
Kristensen likened the clash to the “cat-and-mouse” games that used to take place between Soviet and American ships trying to gather intelligence on each other’s navies. He said the parallels were troubling, though, because of several “very nasty incidents” during the Cold War that almost sparked a broader conflict.
The Americans and Soviets eventually agreed to rules on maritime confrontations to try and keep them from escalating out of control, Kristensen said. “China and America could use that agreement (as a basis) to establish the rules of the road in international waters,” he said.
Lester Ross, a Beijing-based American lawyer at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, said he doubted the Chinese claim of extended maritime sovereignty was legal — but he also urged China and the U.S. to broker a new maritime deal to avoid similar clashes in the future.
China’s economic ties with the U.S. have stayed strong even at times of relative military tension, such as the accidental NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999.
China is the biggest sovereign holder of U.S. government debt, and the naval incident may be quickly pushed aside at a time when the global economy is in crisis, Yan said. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi is still scheduled to meet in Washington today with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“The (Chinese) government wants to minimize, not escalate, conflicts with the U.S.,” Yan said. He predicted the event would be a “very small bump in relations.” Contributing: Associated Press. Bad parallels seen in Chinese naval clash By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY
The US has to come to terms with the new realities of the world. This week’s Atlantic Monthly wrote an article about the end of the supremacy of the US .It is pedagogical to see the message of Paragh Khanna repeated in the mainstream media.
In Washington, China’s actions were seen as part of a broader pattern of more provocative behavior by Beijing in recent years, including expanded territorial claims and stepped-up military activities.
“They seem to be more militarily aggressive, forward pushing, than we saw previously,” Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair said Tuesday in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I think the debate is still on in China as to whether, as their military power increases, it will be used for good or for pushing people around.”
Beijing has long been suspicious of U.S. surveillance activities around China, even as many in Washington remain wary of Beijing’s rapid military buildup. But relations between China and the new Obama administration started out on positive terms as Clinton was warmly received during her visit last month to Beijing. The two sides already had agreed to resume a high-level military dialogue that had been broken off last year by the Chinese in protest of a $6.5-billion U.S. arms sale to Taiwan.
Shi Yinhong, professor of international politics at Beijing’s Renmin University, said it was clear that both sides viewed Sunday’s encounter as quite serious. The order for the Chinese ships to act, he said, probably came from a very high level.
Still, Shi said he did not see the incident as having a serious effect on bilateral ties. The Obama administration wants Chinese cooperation on economic issues, he said, and Chinese leaders want to build good relations with the U.S. to advance their international political objectives.
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Both Washington and Beijing will treat it as an individual event,” he said. “Both sides will want to deal with it.”
The U.S. had lodged a complaint against China, saying five of its ships harassed a U.S. surveillance vessel in the South China Sea. China says the American ship was conducting illegal activities. China says U.S. provoked naval confrontation. By Don Lee March 11, 2009.
[email protected]. Times staff writer Greg Miller in Washington contributed to this report.
