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.
Well, since this is obviously a story that leaves a lot to be desired, evidence-wise...
In my expereince, and any other Naval personnel with operational (bridge/command) expereince will know that to determine who actually had the “right-of-way” in this situation, that is what dictates “who” manuevers, and “who” is allowed by international maritime agreements to those rules of the road, to stay on course and speed...
Since we do not have the “DRT” traces, or ships log, Manuevering boards, and any other electronic tracking data, it will be hard to determine who was right or wrong in this case...
If the US ship was the vessel that was required to manuever to avoid collision, then they would have done so, no skin off anyone’s back...The same could be said for any other vessel if they were required by the rules to be the manuevering ship...It is nothing contentious, if you agree to follow the rules...
If the PLA ship decided to play chicken, and make the Cowpens manuevering to avoid collision to be more abrupt than necessary, then hell yeah, someone is going to get a sternly worded letter from John Effin’ Kerry’s sad sacks...
If the PLA ship was doing what it was supposed to be doing in screening or manuevering with their High Value Target (their carrier), that needs to be factored in...They might have had a station to keep, but the rules still apply to them as well...
The Cowpens, if it was independently steaming, then they were on a course to wherever they were going and could have done some things, within reason to avoid closing on any other vessels along its intended course...
Its all up to the data that we do not have...And I can tell you from experience that all that data is being reviewed by people wayyyyyy up the chain of command...
“China is in break up mode. Their country is rapidly aging due to Socialist anti-family policies.”
Where did you hear this? I recently worked with hundreds of Chinese here in the US and in China and most were under 30. They were also extremely well educated, trained, and capable. None were communists but very capitalist, very entrepreneurial. I found each and every one of them to be great people with bright futures. They were very happy and loving life and technology. They know China has issues and they were eager to help fix what was broken, from pollution to politics. While they loved the US they also loved China and knew she was going to be better every year.
“breakup mode”? You have no idea what you are talking about.
Not to mention China has some nifty anti-ship weapons that don’t need a battleship or cruiser to deploy.
D’oh!
/hang my head in shame
Thanks mark.
What was that?
I remember an amusing event that happened, reminiscent of the Christmas story from WWI:
We had a USO group dropped onto our fantail to perform for our crew. We dropped anchor and the band set up. The Soviet Krivak that had been harassing us for days pulled up within a football field’s length and dropped anchor themselves. Their entire crew came out and watched the USO band perform on our ship. We all waved and took pictures back and forth across the water. When the band finished up, the Krivak weighed anchor and pulled away. A few minutes later, their weapons radar locked on to us, and it was business as usual.
That was the trail in the sky all the professional military commentators said was a submarine launched ballistic missile, but all the administration flacks claimed was a commercial jet contrail.
It occurred when Obama was attending an economic summit with the Chinese a few years back.
‘We have exported so many US jobs that I now go into (any) American shopping establishment and see nothing but Chinese made goods in any department.”
Worse than that. The US is import dependent for a lot of the basic industrial materials necessary for an advanced economy. China is a major source of these materials along with Korea and increasingly India. Basic chemicals such as the nitric acid family are no made to any degree in the US due to environmental regulations . Lead is in the same category, the last smelter in the US has announced it will soon close due to new EPA emissions regulations making it economically impossible to continue to operate and compete with foreign material. In order to conduct military operations the US is dependent on electronic parts from East Asia. I have personally heard a senior Army officer state ‘We are dependent on the air bridge to Asia to conduct operations’. Ponder these realities and think about how vital Japan, Korea and Taiwan are to basic US national interests.
I agree. What it really indicates that the Chinese PLAN is now feeling its oats as a blue-water navy, and is willing to play “chicken” with the USN in much the same way the old Soviet navy did.
The major difference is, we never sent our nation’s industry to Russia.
And China has about five times, America’s population.
There are similarities, but huge and very important differences.
China is winning, bigtime.
America faces a new opponent, and we are busy surrendering to them.
I'm not normally a fan of puns, but that was brilliant.
You’ve not stated which side you are on China’s or the USA? Take a stand on this one.
“willing to play “chicken” with the USN in much the same way the old Soviet navy did.”
Do you get that “PWND” feeling sometimes with China? I do.
All true, but China also has some critical problems to face.
Unfortunately, some of their problems, such as their excess males, might be “solved” by sending them on foreign adventures.
Have you read these definitions? If yes, do you completely understand them and can you tell me what government debt is versus a trade “deficit”?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_debt
China, like the US, is running a government budget deficit:
http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/china
http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/china
China owns about 8% of the $14 trillion plus US debt.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/moneymatters/ss/How-Much-US-Debt-Does-China-Own.htm
You have no idea what you are talking about. (irony?)
You could look it up:
http://www.businessinsider.com/8-charts-on-chinese-demographics-2013-11
https://bangordailynews.com/2013/11/18/opinion/chinese-demographics/
http://www.indexmundi.com/china/demographics_profile.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China
What you’ve done is common in poor thinking - confusing subjective, anectdotal evidence, for objective analysis.
Jjotto pinged for abuse of tagline. ;-]
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.