After months of hyping the incident, the Pentagon finally sent the USS Lassen to 22 km off the Spratly archipelago in the South China Sea, a move that they’d been promising would show China that US ships can sail wherever they please, and over any foreign objection.
China called the move a “serious provocation,” though under international law naval sovereignty does not extend to the sea around artificial islands. Still, it is hard for China not to see the incident that way, since the Pentagon was very public about doing so explicitly to needle China after months of condemning the building of islands, something which is similarly perfectly legal under international law.
Having a US warship go through the area for an actual reason would likely be non-controversial, and the Pentagon’s leadership seemed to be committed to weeks of preamble to make sure this was the international incident it was meant to be. Following this, US officials are threatening to send more ships through.
Details on these new ships going through the area are still scant, and it might not be surprising if the US either doesn’t do it at all, or only does so again after several more months of making hay about today’s crossing. The risk of sending ships through the area too often is that they simply won’t get the publicity they crave.
The risk of sending ships through the area too often is that they simply won’t get the publicity they crave, . . . or that they will run one aground, much to the amusement of the Chinese.
I can't help thinking the main purpose of the exercise is to demonstrate that Uncle Sam obviously needs more warships to protect itself from the "Yellow Peril".
It's also a great diversion from the policy failures in southwest Asia (the part of the world the press calls "Middle East") and Afghanistan. Uncle Sam can't beat a few thousand lightly-armed guerrillas into submission, but He's quite confident He can show the Evil Chinese who's Boss.
jason, this is about more than a few artificial islands (now with 3000' runways).
a glance at china's 9-dash line should clarify what your included map does not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_dispute…
china claims ALL of the south china sea, reducing the 200-nautical mile exclusive
economic zones of vietnam, phillipines, malaysia and brunei to tiny strips barely
large enough to hold a surfing competition.
Poking the Bear in the west, poking the Dragon in the East. Genius. These psychos won't be happy until WW3 erupts. Well done, Mr. Noble Peace Prize.
Isn't this "ratcheting up" the tensions? My goodness.
No problem with U. S. sailing within 12 miles of Chinese islands. Easy.
But the U.S. lacks the power or courage to sail within twelve miles of the Gaza coast. That's a different story because the Israelis simply will not allow it. In 1967 Israel strafed, bombed, and torpedoed a U.S. navy ship, the USS Liberty, killing more than 30 U.S. sailors and wounding dozens of others. Cowed by Israeli power, the U.S., in a manner of speaking, apologized to Israel for being in international waters without Israel's permission. This travesty was a craven non-response for American sailors deliberately killed by Israel.
So, China look out for USS ships near your shores, but U.S. navy, beware of coming near to Israeli claimed waters. Israel will sink U.S. ships; China won't.
The U.S. Navy is absolutely terrified of riling Israel, so it is seeking to gain some sort of lost credibility by poking China.
The U.S. has never showed such cowardice as it has when threatened by Israeli ships or war planes.
but we had to apologize since we were caught committing a war crime.
in broad daylight, we placed survivors in lifeboats directly in the path
of israeli warplanes performing practice strafing runs.
Actually, the US ship sailed 13 miles away from the artificial island. Perhaps there was an agreement to save face. As in the US pretends to interfere, says it has but hasn’t. The Chinese protest and the US doesn’t violate their territory again. I say territory because it is, as the US agreed after the second world war.