Posted on 11/12/2006 10:23:21 PM PST by quesney
By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES November 13, 2006
The USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier The USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier (AFP/Getty Images)
A Chinese submarine stalked a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group in the Pacific last month and surfaced within firing range of its torpedoes and missiles before being detected, The Washington Times has learned.
The surprise encounter highlights China's continuing efforts to prepare for a future conflict with the U.S., despite Pentagon efforts to try to boost relations with Beijing's communist-ruled military.
The submarine encounter with the USS Kitty Hawk and its accompanying warships also is an embarrassment to the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Adm. William J. Fallon, who is engaged in an ambitious military exchange program with China aimed at improving relations between the two nations' militaries.
Disclosure of the incident comes as Adm. Gary Roughead, commander of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet, is making his first visit to China.
[...]
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Uh, why are we doing this?
surfaced within firing range of its torpedoes and missiles before being detected...
Maybe because we owe them money and they wanted a VIP tour of our bases.
It will only get worse now that China has some of it's own in power in the US...
Unfortunately, our illustrious President has done nothing to stop the growing Chinese threat.
Our base belong to them.
What was the mission of this sub? Was it offering goods for sale at WalMart?
I do not know.
Like we would tell them that we know they are there.
I'm not surprised at all by Chinese military behavior. What I want to know is why are we allowing these visits to sensitive US military facilities. Why are we treating them with kid's gloves like some sort of ally, especially when we're getting little or nothing in return?
The Soviets "shadowed" our carrier battle groups all the time during the Cold War. There were protocols about how close they could approach (which was still pretty close), and other "provocative" acts. Sometimes there would be "incidents" when one side or the other didn't appear to be following the "rules".
You mean ES-3's.
I've read this story several times in the last few hours, but every post leaves some frustrating questions. How do we know this Chinese sub was "undetected"? If the sub had been detected, what could we have done about it? Obviously, not much.
The Democrats and the public needs to be reminded of this every damn day. Bush doesn't necessarily need to make his rhetoric louder. Actions speak louder than words.
That same naive attitude in re to china by GWB/Rumsfeld came back to bite them last tuesday in re to iraqi freedom and democracy. Making nice to thugs only gets you killed, on the battlefield and in the ballot box.
1) we owe them money. they support our multinationals in manufacturing capacity and our government in buying our bonds, of which they have nearly 1 trillion dollars' worth.
2) was it detected before or after it surfaced? no carrier is without sub escort. that info is not public - can this sub escape our our carrier group's escort sonar capacity? This info is presumably very classified at this point. It may not be the first such incident either.
3) it surfaced. this is a very clear message in and of itself.
4) anyone who reads the news knows china is actively building up its military capacity, including its navy, with features such as aegis cruisers with tech stolen from us, and obviously the sub fleet is going to be a big part of this.
5) we live in a country that funds china's military buildup (this is under republicans and Bush), and presumably this will continue under democrats. that's life in the brittle aged superpower that is the US.
6) anyone who followed the 1996 chinese money issue with the DNC or the cox report and has half a brain would assume our political system is awash with chinese money. The implications follow.
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