I'd say you, and others on this tread, are the ones with the low information, or lack of knowledge.
If you read down thru the article, in the 7th paragraph from the bottom, you find this sentence: "China is seeking to control large areas of international waters-claiming they are part of its United Nations-defined economic exclusion zone"(EEZ).
This is the Law of the Sea Treaty.
Each coastal nation is granted a 200 mile EEZ. Obviously, there can be overlapping claims to be disputed and negotiated such as the Faulklands/Argentina or US/Cuba. But the US established her maritime borders as part of the Magnussen Act in the 70s. The Magnussen Act established the first 200 mile EEZ and even though it dealt only with fishing, it was the template for the UN's Law of the Sea Treaty.
Second, if a nation can demonstrate, technically, that their shelf extends out beyond 200 miles, they can also claim that as EEZ. China is saying that their shelf extends out beyond the 200 mile.
This is no different from the Arctic, which has been in the news recently. Canada ratified the treaty in 2003 and have to make their claims this year. Canada, Russia, and Denmark(Greenland) are making claims that the Lomonosov Ridge is part of their shelf. Similarly, Britain, Argentina, and Chile are in dispute.
Clinton signed the treaty. Bush failed to get it ratified and Obama failed to get it ratified. The US, Turkey, Israel, Syria, and Iran have not ratified.
After Bush failed to get the treaty ratified, he established his policy to deal with this and Obama has continued Bush's policy.
That is multilateral negotiations among the nations involved. The Artic is negotiated within the Artic Council. The Antarctic is negotiated within the OAS. The South China Sea is negotiated within ASEAN. China doesn't want multilateral negotiations, they want bilateral.
What happened in the hemming in of the US ships is no different from 5 years ago when those Chinese fishing boats hemmed in the USS McCain, who was dragging the sonar tube off of the Phillipines.
The US has been charting the sea bed beginning with Reagan and we have a lot of tech data to dispute these exaggerated claims around the world. But since the US has not ratified the treaty, we don't have a seat on the LOST technical committee.
Folks
You are either misinformed or missing the point.
Do not assume the Chinese Government, (either the Princelings or Old Guard) are completely in charge.
There are large elements of the PLA/(N)/(AF) that are not in control of the nominal Chinese Government, but junior officers acting rather local “Warlords”. These actions cannot be properly examined using the filter of US experience and concept of Civil control of the Military. The situation in China is now much closer to the historical period of Japan in the 1920’s and we know how that worked out.
These tests by the PLAN are simply that tests and are as one here correctly pointed out assuring freedom of the seas is the number two task on the official task list of the USN only behind defending the Dominions and territories of the US in our doctrines of Seapower and Alfred Thayer Mahan.
It is most probable that these actions are taking place to force the Princelings and Old Guard to give these junior elements a greater share of the wealth that is being generated and concentrated at the top of the party.
Instead of concentrating on free trade and such we need to look at our real enemy, the junior cadre, lest we, in typical US historical knee jerk fashion react in a way to weaken those who have much more to lose than we do.