Posted on 12/13/2013 2:57:59 AM PST by markomalley
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.
The guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens, which recently took part in disaster relief operations in the Philippines, 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 PLA Navy vessel had an encounter that required maneuvering to avoid a collision,” a Navy 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.”
A State Department official said the U.S. government issued protests to China 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 port of Qingdao on the northern Chinese coast into the South China Sea.
According to the officials, the run-in began after a Chinese navy 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.
The encounter was the type of incident that senior Pentagon officials recently warned could take place as a result of heightened tensions in the region over China’s declaration of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently called China’s new air defense zone destabilizing and said it increased the risk of a military “miscalculation.”
China’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.
The United States has said it does not recognize China’s ADIZ, as has Japan’s government.
Two U.S. B-52 bombers flew through the air zone last month but were not shadowed by Chinese interceptor jets.
Chinese naval and air forces also have been pressing Japan in the East China Sea over Tokyo’s purchase a year ago of several uninhabited Senkaku Islands located north of Taiwan and south of Okinawa.
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.
Ok, so why did we fire on 4 North Vietnamese torpeodo boats which lead to escalation of war. And why did we shoot down that Iranian airliner and why did the russians shoot down KAL 007 ?
They were reported to have fired on US ships. The Iranian airliner was shot down in the midst of a military confrontation between the US and Iran that came about because the Iranians were attacking civilian ships transiting the Persian Gulf, and just after the Iraqi attack on the USS Stark. KAL 007 was within Soviet air space. Nonetheless, the Soviets shouldn't have shot it down and the shoot down probably cemented the image of the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire.
Unless American naval units have fighting a low-level war with the PLAN, I wouldn't expect the US Navy to initiate an engagement. Whether the Chinese have given their junior officers the green light is something we'll find out in the months and years ahead.
The combined European economies were far bigger than the US prior to WWII. At the end of WWII, the world economy prospered despite the fact that Europe's factories had been turned to rubble. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone.
Why are you assuming that I have just now discovered that no one will stop Obama? In my post I made a rhetorical statement. If you haven been reading my posts over the years, you would not feel the need to suggest that you could tell me about Obama.
You’re right.
The treasonous sale of the machine and die equipment from the closing McDonald-Douglas factory - which, if I recall correctly, involved denying the employees attempting to purchase and re-purpose the factory....even though they had the funds on hand - was the first time I got pissed off at government.
As my grandpa used to say, “Never bring a tank landing ship to a guided missile cruiser fight.”
Or guided missile destroyer, as the case may be.
“In other words, the US ship was acting belligerent and the Chinese ship didn’t give way”
No, the US ship was acting legally in international waters, and the Chicoms decided to get belligerent. They chose to put themselves in the way, and ordered the US ship to stop. That the US ship didn’t immediately kiss Chinese ass doesn’t make the US ship the aggressor.
The Red Chinese tank landing ship: because;
* our destroyer is not designed for ramming
* can’t lower the main deck guns to fire below their own deck in the forward position (i.e. blind spot re using weapons at a lower-hulled ship coming at them)
* Adm. Locklear sounds like a coward. When I think back over the Naval Commanders I’ve met over the decades, I cringe at who we have leading the Navy today esp. the cowardly incompetent Secy of the Navy Mabus - (I’ve met and/or known Adm. Radford, Arleigh Burke, Dan Galley, John Middendorf, John McCain (CINCOMPAC, Vietnam war), Secy of Navy Lehman, and Jeremiah Denton, etc.)
* probably no US air CAP for the ship (like the USS Pueblo)
* Obama the Appeaser is our CIC (Coward in Chief)
* The Red Chinese want war and are building themselves up to win one with us. We, on the other hand, are retreating and will soon abandon the few remaining friends left in the Pacific.
* The Red Chinese are already giving vailed ultimatums of choice to Australia and/or New Zealand, and may already own Fiji.
If Obama once said “Yes we can”, he was only referring to our surrender on the world stage.
Possibly wrong, but I would guess:
Unions?
From all that I have read about it, those boats were phantoms that no one ever saw and were likely the result of hyperactive imagination.
Having been in a bunker during Tet 68 watching the dark, I know what imagination can conjure up.
No digital recordings of the radar tracks back then.
This is too good to pass up:
Didn't a ChiCom sub surface in the middle of a carrier group recently?
Buying a car that loses up to half of it's resale value the moment you drive off the lot is not a glowing testament to your purchasing prowess.........
Enjoy it now, and run it into the ground, the only way to get your moneys worth out of the POS, saying that as a former Audi owner.
Not a good idea with an aluminum hulled ship.
Brings to mind those guys that smash aluminum beer cans on their foreheads................
Like we cannot raise enough American chickens to keep McDonalds supplied.
And Chick-fil-A, I would add...!
Maybe it's that U.S. farmers costs have been driven up substantially. It was not that long ago that one could buy 10 lb. bags of leg quarters for $.29/lb. on sale, and $.39/lb. routinely. Now the same stores' sale ads are at $.79/lb.
Still, chicken imports from China? That's pretty amazing. It's sure be interesting to see what's happened to chicken production in the U.S. in the last 50 years. If the farms around here are any indication, it has to have skyrocketed.
Perhaps it is demand. Just consider the influx of Filipinas married to Americans and immigrating here. Not only does my (Filipina) wife eat lots of chicken, I think my consumption has quadrupled. :-)
That's a very good point. It might also address (more seriously) at least part of my complaint about food prices, although I'm sure exports are not the only thing driving up U.S. food prices! (#$%&*@!% ethanol policy!)
Former farmland that has been out of production around here for decades is being reconverted to farmland...
As China becomes richer, their demand for U.S. food, timber, and energy exports grows, and their ability to compete at the bottom of the labor price ladder diminishes.
At any rate, if for the last 5 years we hadn't been in the grip of REAL commies (the Obama crowd) and had also followed an energy resources policy that made a lick of sense, we would have a consistently positive balance of trade, now. IMO.
“Didn’t a ChiCom sub surface in the middle of a carrier group recently? “
Wasn’t the first time a foreign sub surprised us.
Well, having worked at engineering jobs for multiple U.S. manufacturers, the last of which / my current main employer is doing well but could be doing even better, let me take those item by item:
child labor
Generally, I'd say the regulations and policies in effect @ the end of the "Dubya" era were fine. There is no place for "industrial child labor" in the U.S. We should be effectively educating kids, period. On the other hand, it is ridiculous to say that farmers' kids should not be allowed to work on family farms, as long as they get their schoolwork in too. Some of the most ingenious / effective engineers and technicians I've ever met came from farming backgrounds.
OSHA standards
Some should be relaxed somewhat, but my main beef with OSHA Standards is not the levels set, or whatever the rules are, but how the rules are enforced. OSHA inspectors do not try to guide businesses into compliance, they slam businesses with big fines for the slightest 1st time infraction. Not to mention that the rules often change and can be insanely complex. I'm not saying that OSHA should be business' friend, but they could be more like the firm cop who writes you a warning ticket that you were going 58 mph coming into that 50 mph zone, and "the next time it won't be a warning ticket."
environmental regulations
Ditto OSHA comments above in some areas, and more so in others. Don't get me wrong, there's no way I'd want to go back to Chinese standards. My brother has been there a few times and... blechh. I love the outdoors and very much appreciate that, for example, many local sources of mercury pollution have been reduced or eliminated. If my family goes on a camping / fishing trip, the fish we eat are less likely to be contaminated by local sources than they would have been 20 years ago. However, there is a point where what one does is counterproductive: In many areas of the U.S. today, what mercury there is in fish in local waters likely has more mercury in it from Chinese sources making it all the way here, than from local pollution! If overzealous environmental regulations drive manufacturing overseas, which undoubtedly is the case, one may be shooting themselves in the foot both economically AND environmentally.
taxes
Corporate taxes absolutely should be lowered drastically, especially those on small business. Deductions for R&D and plant modernization should be increased and / or depreciation sped up.
government subsidies
Should be eliminated in most cases. There are better ways to create business-friendly environments -- and by the way I do agree with you about the current "crony capitalism" system.
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