China-US sea confrontations could continue

[David]

AP


BEIJING – China responded sharply Tuesday to Washington's accusations over a confrontation at sea, an incident that analysts said could become more common as Beijing strengthens its navy and asserts claims to adjacent waters.

The U.S. accused Chinese ships of surrounding and harassing its Navy vessel in international waters, coming within 25 feet (8 meters) of the USNS Impeccable, stopping dead in front of it and strewing debris in its path. Some of the Chinese crew even stripped to their underwear after a blast by U.S. fire hoses.

But China's Foreign Ministry said the American vessel "broke international and Chinese laws in the South China Sea without China's permission."

Sunday's incident will likely be discussed when Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi visits Washington this week. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing lodged a protest with the Foreign Ministry and said the Navy mapping vessel had been conducting "routine operations ... in accordance with customary international law."

The latest confrontation between U.S. surveillance craft and Chinese coastal defenses took place in international waters in the South China Sea about 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of China's Hainan Island, the home of numerous Chinese naval installations.

Observers said Beijing appeared to be asserting its claim to refuse rights to foreign navies wanting to carry out surveillance within its 200-mile exclusive economic zone.

The zone, under international law, gives a state certain rights over the use of natural resources there. But the U.S.-China confrontation is military in nature.

"China considers that international law only allows innocent passage for military vessels in its zone, not activities that could be considered to have a military purpose," said Shen Dingli, director of the Center of American Studies at Shanghai's Fudan University.

That clashes with one of the cardinal principles of America's doctrine of ocean navigation: the right to unrestricted passage in international waters as long as vessels are not encroaching on the economic interests of the country it is passing.

While the U.S. has offered talks on the issue, neither side appears willing to compromise.

China has recorded at least 200 instances of U.S. vessels collecting intelligence in China's exclusive economic zone, but generally chose to avoid confrontation, said Guan Jianqiang, an international law expert at Shanghai's East China University of Politics and Law.

The latest incident had overtones of spycraft, but the U.S. ship is not, strictly speaking, a spy ship. It maps the ocean floor with sonar, compiling information the Navy can use to steer its own submarines or track those of other nations.

Hainan hosts numerous naval and air force installations and is the home of Beijing's newest submarine base. An overall naval upgrade is adding advanced missile destroyers, diesel electric submarines, and possibly one or more aircraft carriers in coming years.

The U.S. and others are eager to learn more about those programs and their eventual aims, although Beijing has largely dismissed calls for greater transparency. Keeping out prying eyes and ears is a key priority.

"For the foreseeable future, China will continue to test the waters to see to what extent they can dissuade the U.S. from taking such a close interest," said Ron Huisken of the Australian National University's Strategic and Defense Studies Center.

The naval upgrade comes alongside a growing diplomatic assertiveness in Beijing, particularly in backing up its claims to extensive maritime territories to the east and south.

China views almost the entirety of the South China Sea as its territory. Its claims to small islets in the region have put it at odds with five governments — the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

The weekend incident also comes amid an overwhelmingly positive start to relations between China and the Obama administration, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton receiving a warm welcome during a visit to Beijing last month.

Clinton was followed by David Sedney, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asian security affairs. His visit marked the first formal military dialogue between the People's Liberation Army and the U.S. since China canceled or suspended nearly a dozen exchanges last year in protest over a $6.5 billion U.S. arms sale to Taiwan.

Despite the positive momentum, the U.S. remains wary of China's rapid military buildup, fueled by double-digit annual percentage increases in the defense budget.

[David]

AP


WASHINGTON – The U.S. Navy ship that got into a scrape with five Chinese vessels last weekend in the South China Sea was looking for threats such as submarines — presumably Chinese — in waters that China claims as its own, defense officials acknowledged Tuesday.

The United States maintains that the unarmed USNS Impeccable was operating legally in international waters when it was surrounded and harassed by the Chinese. Beijing responded hotly to a U.S. protest over Sunday's incident, and neither nation is backing down, even as they prepare for a much-anticipated first meeting between President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao next month.

Although they would not be specific about the Impeccable's mission when it was intercepted by the Chinese ships, two defense officials said the ship is designed and equipped for sub-hunting work and was part of a calculated U.S. surveillance operation in the disputed South China Sea.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the ship's exact capabilities are sensitive. Other U.S. officials have said on the record that the U.S. military will continue to patrol in the South China Sea despite Chinese objections.

A senior U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday the confrontation was the most serious episode between the two nations since 2001, when tensions rose over an in-flight collision between a U.S. and a Chinese plane.

"They seem to be more militarily aggressive," National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"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."

The surveillance ship tows a sonar apparatus that scans and listens for foreign threats that also include mines and torpedoes. The sonar array was deployed at the time of the confrontation, and a U.S. account says Chinese mariners tried to snag it with poles.

The ship is operated by a civilian crew under Navy supervision. It is not a warship or, strictly speaking, a spy ship. Its work is part of a largely unseen cat and mouse game in which the United States tracks foreign submarines on the open seas.

In this case, the sub-hunting took place in a disputed band of water far off the Chinese coastline but within what Beijing considers a 200-mile economic zone under its control. The zone, under international law, gives a state certain rights over the use of natural resources there. That clashes with one of the cardinal principles of America's doctrine of ocean navigation — the right to unrestricted passage in international waters as long as vessels are not encroaching on the economic interests of the country they pass.

"It is our view that we were operating in international waters," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Tuesday.

While the U.S. has offered talks on the issue, neither side appears willing to compromise.

"The Chinese do the same thing. It's just that they don't do it around us," said Bonnie Glaser, an expert on the Chinese military and U.S.-Chinese relations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Glaser said the two nations need a better rule book for the disputed area, but she predicted that both countries will try to make sure the diplomatic sniping over the Impeccable doesn't go too far.

Analysts also noted that the incident, capping a string of provocations in the South China Sea, comes as China nears announcement that it will expand its naval capabilities. China this week also unveiled its plans for a nearly 15 percent increase in defense spending this year.

China will have an aircraft carrier "very soon," a top Chinese naval officer told a newspaper last week, fueling speculation over a pending official announcement on the long-awaited project. Meanwhile, a State Department official said Tuesday that the Obama administration was considering whether to raise the matter with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, who was due in Washington on Wednesday to meet with U.S. diplomats.

U.S. defense officials had said the Chinese boats veered so close to the Impeccable that the U.S. civilian crew had to spray one Chinese vessel with a high-pressure stream of water. Stripped to their drenched underwear, the Chinese crew came within 25 feet. When the Impeccable tried to withdraw, U.S. officials said, Chinese boats veered in its path and dropped debris in the water.

[39mto39g]

Remind anyone of Carter's time.
It will just continue.
Ron

[Doc.2/47]

Full speed ahead and bill the Chinese for any damage resulting from any unavoidable collisions.

[Boats]

Its just a message being sent. They have a new President and they will test the waters. I really don't think they want to disrupt their new found US$ from trade. I feel its merely a little statement to see how Obama will react. Don't know when he's going there but I'm sure this issue will be interesting to see how he responds to the actions. Maybe not him but maybe Clinton will go and get a lay of the land. I don't put too much into this type of action. Pretty common and would be disappointing if they didn't react to some degree.

[David]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States sought on Wednesday to play down a confrontation between Chinese and U.S. naval vessels as the two sides held high-level talks on reviving growth and reining in North Korea's nuclear program.

Tensions between the two countries rose over a weekend incident in the South China Sea in which five Chinese ships jostled with a U.S. Navy survey vessel off China's southern Hainan island, a major base for Beijing's expanding navy.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she raised the issue with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, who was to see U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner later in the day and, in a rare gesture, to meet President Barack Obama on Thursday.

"We both agreed that we should work to ensure that such incidents do not happen again in the future," Clinton told reporters after a meeting with Yang. They also discussed human rights, North Korea and the ailing global economy.

Clinton said the there was "a range of options," including action in the U.N. Security Council, that could be pursued against North Korea if it tests a long-range ballistic missile, which she said would be a "provocative" act.

She also repeated the long-standing U.S. request that North Korea return to the negotiating table to discuss a multilateral deal under an aid-for-disarmament deal in which Pyongyang agreed to abandon its nuclear programs.

Grappling with North Korea, which tested a nuclear weapon in 2006, is one of a host of issues on a U.S.-Chinese agenda that also covers reviving global growth and restraining global climate change.

Clinton was harshly criticized by rights groups for her comment in Asia last month that U.S. concerns about human rights in China "can't interfere with" joint work on the economy and other issues.

She sought to rebut the criticism, saying that the United States will always raise human rights with China but that it aimed to do so in a way that produced results.

"Human rights is part of our comprehensive dialogue. It doesn't take a front or a back seat or a middle seat," she told reporters. "It is part of the broad range of issues that we are discussing, but it is important to try to create a platform for actually seeing results from our human rights engagement."

[David]

AP


WASHINGTON – The United States and China agreed Wednesday on the need to reduce tensions and avoid a repeat of a confrontation between American and Chinese vessels in the South China Sea, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. "We both agreed that we should work to ensure that such incidents do not happen again," Clinton told reporters after meeting Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi at the State Department.

The two countries remained at odds over the exact circumstances.

"We have each stated our positions, but 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," she said.

Clinton told reporters that Yang's visit was a "very positive" development and that she looked forward to continuing discussions that she started with him during a trip to Beijing last month to build a "positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship."

Before their private meeting, neither Clinton nor Yang mentioned the dispute, even as China's Foreign Ministry in Beijing responded for a second consecutive day to U.S. complaints that Chinese vessels harassed a U.S. Navy surveillance ship in international waters on Sunday.

Yang plans to meet Thursday with President Barack Obama and his national security adviser, James Jones. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said he expects the dispute will be discussed but will not dominate the conversation.

At the Pentagon, Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell said the U.S. hopes that "face-to-face dialogue in Beijing and in Washington will go a long way to clearing up any misunderstanding about this incident."

Even if diplomatic efforts by Clinton and Yang are successful in toning down the dispute, however, it may be only a temporary lull in a larger military disagreement.

Beijing has long complained about U.S. surveillance operations around China's borders. Without better communications between the two militaries as they operate in the South China Sea, the possibility for conflict will remain.

On Wednesday, China's Foreign Ministry in Beijing reiterated that the U.S. claims are "gravely in contravention of the facts and unacceptable to China." Beijing says the U.S. ship was operating illegally in China's exclusive economic zone.

U.S. defense officials say the unarmed Navy ship was in international waters and violating no laws. Officials said the USS Impeccable was looking for threats such as submarines, presumably Chinese. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the ship's exact capabilities are sensitive information.

Other U.S. officials have said publicly that the United States will continue to patrol in the South China Sea despite Chinese objections. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told lawmakers Tuesday that the incident was the most serious episode between the two nations since 2001, when China forced the landing of a U.S. spy plane and seized the crew.

The tension arose as the Obama administration tries to get Chinese help 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 staunch the worldwide economic meltdown.

Yang did not speak to reporters after his meeting with Clinton but said earlier that the primary point of his visit was to prepare for a meeting between Obama and Chinese President Hu Jinatao that will take place in early April in London on the sidelines of a summit on the global financial crisis.

Clinton said the United States and China share a joint responsibility to make that summit a success and help the world's ailing economies recover. She praised as "a very positive step" the Chinese government's own economic stimulus package, which is aimed at promoting domestic consumption.

"There is a great commitment and willingness on the part of both our government and the Chinese government to play productive and constructive roles in helping to move the world toward this recovery," she said, noting that Yang would also meet Wednesday with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

In her comments, Clinton rejected criticism from some lawmakers and human rights groups that the administration has downgraded the promotion of human rights in its foreign policy. She noted she had raised such matters, including the situation in Tibet, with Yang.

"Human rights is part of our comprehensive dialogue" with China, she said. "It doesn't take a front seat, a back seat or a middle seat. It is part of the broad range of issues that we are discussing."