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.
,
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
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.”
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
on the northern Chinese coast into the South China Sea.
vessel sent a hailing warning and ordered the Cowpens to stop. The
cruiser continued on its course and refused the order because it was
operating in international waters.
Then a Chinese tank landing
ship sailed in front of the Cowpens and stopped, forcing the Cowpens to
abruptly change course in what the officials said was a dangerous
maneuver.
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.
officials recently warned could take place as a result of heightened tensions in the region over
’s declaration of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea.
’s new air defense zone destabilizing and said it increased the risk of a military “miscalculation.”
’s
military forces in recent days have dispatched Su-30 and J-11 fighter
jets, as well as KJ-2000 airborne warning and control aircraft, to the
zone to monitor the airspace that is used frequently by U.S. and
Japanese military surveillance aircraft.
’s government.
Two U.S. B-52 bombers flew through the air zone last month but were not shadowed by Chinese interceptor jets.
in the East China Sea over Tokyo’s purchase a year ago of several uninhabited Senkaku Islands located north of
China
is claiming the islands, which it calls the Diaoyu. They are believed
to contain large undersea reserves of natural gas and oil.
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.”
The
Pentagon and U.S. Pacific Command have sought to develop closer ties to the
Chinese military as part of the Obama administration’s Asia pivot policies.
However,
China’s military has shown limited interest in closer ties.
China’s state-controlled news media regularly report that the United States is seeking to defeat
China by encircling the country with enemies while promoting dissidents within who seek the ouster of the communist regime.
The Obama administration has denied it is seeking to “contain”
China and has insisted it wants continued close economic and diplomatic relations.
President
Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to seek a new type
of major power relationship during a summit in California earlier this
year. However, the exact nature of the new relationship remains unclear.
