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The U.S. just sent a carrier strike group to confront China

F-22Raptor

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The U.S. Navy has dispatched a small armada to the South China Sea.

The carrier John C. Stennis, two destroyers, two cruisers and the 7th Fleet flagship have sailed into the disputed waters in the last 24 hours, according to military officials. The carrier strike group is the latest show of force in the tense region, with the U.S. asserting that China is militarizing the region to guard its excessive territorial claims.

Stennis is joined in the region by the cruisers Antietam and Mobile Bay, and the destroyers Chung-Hoon and Stockdale. The command ship Blue Ridge, the floating headquarters of the Japan-based 7th Fleet, is also in the area, en route to a port visit in the Philippines, and Stennis deployed from Washington State on Jan. 15.

The Japan-based Antietam, officials said, was conducting a "routine patrol" separate from the Stennis, following up patrols conducted by the destroyer McCambell and the dock landing ship Ashland in late February.

The stand-off has been heating up on both sides. After news in February that the Chinese had deployed an advanced surface-to-air missile battery to the Paracel Islands, U.S. Pacific Command head Adm. Harry Harris told lawmakers that China was militarizing the South China Sea.

"In my opinion China is clearly militarizing the South China Sea," Harris testified on Feb. 24. "You’d have to believe in a flat Earth to believe otherwise."

A 7th Fleet spokesman downplayed the heavy U.S. presence in the region.

"Our ships and aircraft operate routinely throughout the Western Pacific — including the South China Sea — and have for decades," Cmdr. Clay Doss said in a statement. "In 2015 alone, Pacific Fleet ships sailed about 700 combined days in the South China Sea."

However, experts say sending Stennis and its air wing to the South China Sea is a clear signal to China and the region.

"Clearly the Navy and DoD is demonstrating its full commitment to presence and freedom of navigation in the region,” said Jerry Hendrix, a retired Navy captain and analyst with the Center for a New American Security in Washington, D.C. “With the full carrier strike group and the command ship, the Navy is showing the scope of its interests and ability to project presence and power around world.”

The destroyer Lassen's vaunted October patrol within the 12-mile limit of China's man-made South China Sea islands was the first challenge of China's sovereignty over the Spratly Islands since Chinese land-reclamation projects began there.

On Jan. 30, the destroyer Curtis Wilbur patrolled near Triton Island, part of the Paracel Islands chain China also claims.

Six nations in the region lay claim to parts or all of the disputed islands chains. The Spratly Islands, a collection of reefs, rocks and other natural features, have been the site of extensive Chinese land reclamation projects. In the last two years, China has begun constructing islands on top of reefs and claiming territorial seas around them to gain exclusive fishing and resource rights to most of the South China Sea.

These disputes have led to violence in the past. In 1974, a conflict between South Vietnam and China led to a shootout in the Paracel Islands, located between Vietnam and China's Hainan Island. That dispute continues.

The U.S. just sent a carrier strike group to confront China
 
USS John Stennis

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USS Blue Ridge

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USS Antietam

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USS Mobile Bay

US_Navy_060417-N-5384B-049_Guided-missile_cruiser_USS_Mobile_Bay,_foreground_and_Nimitz-class_aircraft_carrier_USS_Abraham_Lincoln,_through_the_South_China_Sea.jpg

USS Chung-Hoon

US_Navy_090720-N-3666S-036_Sailors_man_the_rails_aboard_the_Arleigh_Burke-class_guided-missile_destroyer_USS_Chung-Hoon_(DDG_93)_as_the_ship_pulls_into_Naval_Station_Pearl_Harbor_after_a_six-month_deployment_in_the_Western_Paci.jpg


USS Stockdale

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For all its impressive firepower, I doubt if it would ever fire a single shot in SCS. US is there for an "Innocent Pass", but China is there to Stay.

Exactly, we are there to stay. :enjoy:

Not a single person on Earth would believe that China would stop building those islands simply because America cries about it day and night. Even the Americans don't believe it themselves.
 
Exactly, we are there to stay. :enjoy:

Not a single person on Earth would believe that China would stop building those islands simply because America cries about it day and night. Even the Americans don't believe it themselves.

For those Chinese who want to see a 20% hike in defense budget this year, this US CBG couldn't come in better time. Now China has every reason to "militarize" their assets in SCS. Talking about "self-fulfilled prophecy"! Is someone in US Navy 7th Fleet working for Chinese hawks?
 
No amount of show of forces by any country will deter China from reaffirming its rightful sovereign ownership of features/islands in SCS.

Not by USA,
Not by Japan,
and surely not by Philippine.
 
Occupation with force of China on Islands and Reefs of Vietnam is illegal.
 
Boy this just keeps getting better and better. I hope Russia and China keep up with this annexation/island-building stuff, its just more allies and stronger ties for us in Europe and Asia.

Didn't Americans cry about China "militarizing" the South China Sea just a few days ago? What do they call this?
A response, unless you want to equate sailing ships through a major shipping lane with putting SAM systems and airfields on artificially built islands.
 
Didn't Americans cry about China "militarizing" the South China Sea just a few days ago? What do they call this?
Uh....the response to China militarising the SCS? :what: You didn't really think that China was just going to engage in her actions in the SCS with impunity, did you?
 
Uh....the response to China militarising the SCS? :what: You didn't really think that China was just going to engage in her actions in the SCS with impunity, did you?
You mean deployment of HQ-9 batteries AFTER you flew bombers in the area? C'mon son, at least get the cause and effect right, even if you're not known for your intelligence.
 
You mean deployment of HQ-9 batteries AFTER you flew bombers in the area? C'mon son, at least get the cause and effect right, even if you're not known for your intelligence.
The B-52 flights were only in the ECS after china claimed an ADIZ over disputed islands, not in the SCS.

And we never started doing FONOPs until they started building islands deep in the SCS. You got your timeline wrong son.
 
You mean deployment of HQ-9 batteries AFTER you flew bombers in the area? C'mon son, at least get the cause and effect right, even if you're not known for your intelligence.
Yah, that's right. That's why the SCS nations have arrayed themselves against the United States in this.....because they know we Americans instigated it all. :rofl: You just keep telling yourself what you want to hear....

(Probably best if you avoid reading the, oh, about two dozen threads on various SCS and other regional nations, who are building up their military presence in the face of Chinese actions in the area. )
 
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