With the PLAN trying out their big boy britches, I would not be too surprised to see an incident or two similar to the Yorktown Vs. the Bezzavetnyy.
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.
How small is America’s manufacturing base? In dollars.
“During the cold war, it was a common USN tactic to run support vessels into the path of Soviet trawlers who were shadowing the carrier groups too closely..”
What was the US Navy response to a Soviet guided missle cruiser shadowing a US Carrier ?
Nice post in 108.
But I think I will add that sending a ship like Cowpens to shadow the only Chinese carrier they have is provacative.
I want to say that having USA get into a shooting war with China has to be the best dream that Islamic nationalists could ever want. It would destroy western monetary system, and capitalism in general. It would also engage the Buddhists vs. the Christians leaving Islam in contro.
“Ponder these realities and think about how vital Japan, Korea and Taiwan are to basic US national interests.”
In a lot of ways, China and the USA along with Japan, Taiwan, etc. are all interconnected.
The countries that are isolated from the modern world are mostly islamic that produce nothing of value except for the oil that comes underneath their sand.
“Visio’s for example are an American company.”
Vizio was founded by a Taiwanese immigrant. He had good connections in Taiwan where most of the electronics are made. The glass is from Owens Corning in the USA. The final assembly is near Newport Beach CA where the founder has his home. I guess his commuting time is reduced.
How does one guy do all that assembly? lol
We[Conservatives , Christians and Jews are at the same stage the Jews in Germany were in 1934 and 35. The National Socialists Worker Party was foaming at the mouth daily saying what they intended to do the Jews. The Jew's response? Something to the effect that they did not mean what they were saying. This was just political talk and would soon blow over. History tells us what actually happened.
Obama and his minions are more subtle with their message, but they intend for the results to be the same. The Conservative's response? We got guns. So we do. The only problem with that is the Left no longer believes we have the will to use them.
I never said anything about ramming. That would play hell with the Cowpens’ bow sonar anyway. I was referring more to a traditional naval engagement. I can’t imagine that floating chinese bathtub being able to survive more than a couple of minutes in a slugging match with a missile cruiser. As noted upthread, the bow gun on the Cowpens is almost certainly capable of cutting the LST in half in short order all by itself, and that still leaves all this for the rest of the group:
2 × 61 cell Mk 41 vertical launch systems with:
122 × Mix of RIM-66M-5 Standard SM-2MR Block IIIB, RIM-156A SM-2ER Block IV, RIM-161 SM-3, RIM-162A ESSM, RIM-174A Standard ERAM, BGM-109 Tomahawk, or RUM-139A VL-ASROC
8 × RGM-84 Harpoon missiles
The other Mk 45 Mod 2 5 in / 54 cal lightweight gun
2 × 25 mm Mk 38 gun
2–4 × .50 cal (12.7 mm) gun
2 × Phalanx CIWS Block 1B
2 × Mk 32 12.75 in (324 mm) triple torpedo tubes for lightweight torpedoes
And lest we forget, the Cowpens still carries the stain of former Capt. Holly Graf.
Why are people different than goods and services? Seriously?
Doesn't a proponent of "free trade" also support the free movement of labor?
Nope. I'd happily eliminate 95% of the regulations added in the last 30 years while booting 95% of the illegals who came here in the last 30 years.
With the PLAN trying out their big boy britches, I would not be too surprised to see an incident or two similar to the Yorktown Vs. the Bezzavetnyy.
Chinese are willing to work hard and accurately at production jobs, unlike many US persons. Until that
changes we will be seeing “made in China” a lot.
Factories are not pleasant places to work.
Just a few love taps
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
*****************************************************
I think the nature of the new relationship is BOHICA, with the USA grabbing it’s ankles so to speak, in a deep low bow to those friendly Chinese Military Types.
Oops! lol
Look at your post! You're the one rooting for it making you the traitor.
No, I believe the American worker is the best and that's why I don't fear free trade like you do.
If you don't get into management at some point you are worthless
No, who is more valuable to a company, a person that can run a machine the size of a barn, or a person that walks around writing stuff on a clipboard? In most cases the guy who runs the machine.
Offshoring production to a slavocracy and potential enemy is considered the height of freedom
Every nation on earth is a potential enemy. Under a better tax and regulation system, only the industries we can't do efficiently would be offshored, and those are usually the low-tech industries.
Displaced factory workers should just retrain to be brain surgeons and software engineers
Factory work is factory work. If you can do it you can do it, it usually doesn't matter what industry it is. You don't have to go to college to go from sheet metal to wood, or vice-versa.
The ChiComs are more free than we are.
Every people gets the government they fight for. If they are not free they need to fight, if they don't fight, then they don't have the motivation it takes to be free. That's why nation-building doesn't work. We're still more free than the Chinese but we still have that 2/3rds of the population we had in 1776 that either doesn't care or wants men like Obama to be dictators.
Question: “Are Vizio TV’s made in the USA?”
Answer: NO! Not one screw is turned in the states during assembly. They are made in China/Taiwan. According to the Vizio rep I spoke to, they are made to Vizio’s spec overseas. Vizio has absolutely no hand in the manufacturing of Vizio TV’s. Vizio gives the requirements to AmTran and they make them for from whatever parts fit the bill. The Vizio reps justification for this was that many other companies don’t make their own products, so why should Vizio? “AmTran is the best maker of HD televisions, which is why they were chosen by Vizio”.
The CEO of Vizio, William Wang, is the former owner of Princeton monitor company. Princeton went out of business a few years ago. This left Wang free to be the mastermind of Vizio televisions. Your “American Made” Vizio only employees about 100 employees in the states and has no say over the people or talent responsible for the Vizio phenomenon. Accoding to William Wang, Vizio aspires to be the next Sony by selling their discount televisions at Costco and Wal-Mart.
There is not one single FR member I'm in complete agreement with. No biggie.
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