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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Destroyer now escorting ship involved in US-China incident |
| 2009-03-12 |
| China’s Defense Ministry is demanding that the U.S. Navy end surveillance missions off China’s southern coast after a weekend confrontation between an American vessel and Chinese ships. In its first public comment on the issue, the ministry repeated earlier Chinese statements that the unarmed U.S. ship was operating illegally inside China’s exclusive economic zone. “The Chinese side’s carrying out of routine enforcement and safeguarding measures within its exclusive economic zone was entirely appropriate and legal,” ministry spokesman Huang Xueping said in a statement faxed to reporters today. “We demand the United States respect our legal interests and security concerns and take effective measures to prevent a recurrence of such incidents.” The Navy on Wednesday assigned a destroyer escort to the ship that narrowly missed colliding with the Chinese vessels Sunday. A defense official, speaking on background, confirmed Wednesday that the destroyer USS Chung-Hoon is keeping a close eye on the surveillance ship Impeccable, which continues to operate in the South China Sea. Yes. It's American... Rear Admiral Gordon Pai'ea Chung-Hoon was born on July 25, 1910, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The second youngest of five Chung-Hoon children, he attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in May 1934. While at the Naval Academy, he was a valued member of the Navy Football team. He is a recipient of the Navy Cross and Silver Star for conspicuous gallantry and extraordinary heroism as Commanding Officer of USS Sigsbee (DD 502) from May 1944 to October 1945. In the spring of 1945, Sigsbee assisted in the destruction of 20 enemy planes while screening a carrier strike force off the Japanese island of Kyushu. On April 14, 1945, while on radar picket station off Okinawa, a kamikaze crashed into Sigsbee, reducing her starboard engine to five knots and knocking out the ship's port engine and steering control. Despite the damage, Admiral Chung-Hoon, then a Commander, valiantly kept his anti-aircraft batteries delivering "prolonged and effective fire" against the continuing enemy air attack while simultaneously directing the damage control efforts that allowed Sigsbee to make port under her own power. After retiring from the Navy in 1959, Rear Admiral Chung-Hoon was appointed by William Quinn, Hawaii’s first elected governor since statehood, to serve as director of the state Department of Agriculture. Rear Admiral Chung-Hoon died in July 1979. The Impeccable, which is unarmed and manned by civilian mariners, deploys and tows sonar equipment used to locate and track submarines. American officials contend the ship has been careful to stay in international waters. The United States says five Chinese vessels approached the Impeccable, ignoring requests to keep their distance, and that one got so close that the Americans employed fire hoses to repel it. The new U.S. effort to protect the ship came as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi conferred at the State Department, their second meeting in less than a month. “The important point of agreement coming out of my discussions with Minister Yang is that we must work hard in the future to avoid such incidents and to avoid this particular incident having consequences that are unforeseen,” Clinton told reporters. Yang, who did not speak after the meeting , is to meet today with President Barack Obama and his national security adviser, retired Marine Gen. James Jones. On Capitol Hill, Rep. Randy Forbes, a Chesapeake Republican who is co-chairman of the Congressional China Caucus, said he expects to introduce a resolution today condemning the Chinese “harassment” of U.S. forces. Sunday’s incident was one of a series, and the close approach “clearly a deliberate action,” he said. Forbes praised the Navy’s assignment of a warship to protect the Impeccable but added that Congress must send “a clear, loud message” that the United States will protect the right of its ships to operate in international waters. The latest incident appears to be “part of a wider and dangerous cat-and-mouse game between U.S. and Chinese submarines and their hunters,” Hans M. Kristensen, a nuclear weapons analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, wrote Tuesday on the group’s Web site. Kristensen said it’s likely there have been more close encounters, so far unreported by either country. “We don’t know what’s going on below the surface,” he asserted. The Obama administration is seeking Chinese cooperation on a host of foreign policy matters, including efforts to confront Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs, stabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan and help sta nch the worldwide economic meltdown. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #9 CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > POSTER = CHINA'S PLAN SHOULD START SENDING SPY SHIPS TO GUAM AND HAWAII. Also, STARS-N-STRIPES/MVARIETY > AMERICAN DREAN ENDS TO GUAM RUMOR FOR IRAQIS. Things getting so bad in America = Amerika, rumors have begun that Iraqis + Muslims seeking work will be sent to Guam. * Lest we fergit, PAN-ASIAN ISLAMIST MILIT-TERR THREAT + GLOBAL-SOLAR WARMING INDUCED "EARTH/LAND CHANGES" [e.g. Indonesia-Sumatran HI-MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKES] > result in ETHNIC DIASPORAS = MIGRATIONS TO NEW LANDS, espec to CONUS-NORAM via GUAM + OTHER PACIFIC ISLANDS, potentially destabilizing and disrupting TRADITIONAL LOCAL STATUS QUOS = ESTABLISHED ORDERS. And so it begins ........ |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-03-12 23:52 |
| #8 DRUDGEREPORT > US WARSHIPS HEADED FOR SDOUTH CHINA SEA AFTER NAVAL STANDOFF [The Bammmer orders in USN Armed Escorts for USS IMPECCABLE]. Also, PRAVDA > AMERICA's NEXT CATASTROPHE IS BREWING JUST SOUTH OF ITS [Texas/Tehas, SW] BORDERS[MEXICO in the process of TOTAL COLLAPSE]??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-03-12 23:25 |
| #7 More specifically, the operating crew are civilian contract personnel; the technicians generally are Civil Service. USNS means that it is an auxiliary ship, a non-combatant. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2009-03-12 21:17 |
| #6 A simple question: Why isn't the Impeccable armed. Because it's crewed by Civillians. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2009-03-12 15:35 |
| #5 Doesn't China pull this kind of stunt for each new president? 8 years ago, it was with an intel P-3. Same area too. |
| Posted by: Minister of funny walks 2009-03-12 14:15 |
| #4 Yeah - China has opened Confucious Institiutes everywhere these days. They are tools of Chinese foreign policy, and seek to influence thought. They're probably going to work, too. |
| Posted by: gromky 2009-03-12 12:48 |
| #3 I'm impressed with having the Chung-Hoon escort the intel ship. Sounds like an adult was on duty at the White House. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2009-03-12 11:20 |
| #2 A simple question: Why isn't the Impeccable armed. Given the kind of violence that has been visited on US intelligence ships since the 60's, they should be more heavily armed rather than less. |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2009-03-12 11:17 |
| #1 The battle of ideas behind China's naval agression. By James Kraska and Brian Wilson China’s bold and dangerous maneuvers against the USNS Impeccable, a U.S. Navy military survey vessel, which was operating about 120 km from the island of Hainan in the East China Sea is the latest salvo in China’s ongoing campaign to upset traditional notions of freedom of navigation in order to deny access to its coastal waters, or littorals, by foreign warships, and aircraft. The event marks the first test of the Obama administration regarding China’s efforts to reshape the international law of the sea. Following the Cold War, the littorals have emerged as the primary maritime battleground for peace and stability. International law, as reflected in the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, recognizes that all states enjoy the right to conduct military activities throughout the near shore environment -- generally beyond the 12 nautical mile (nm) territorial sea and extending out to 200 nm (one nm = 1.85 km). This coastal zone is the primary operating area for “Seabasing,” amphibious, expeditionary, and littoral operations, and generally encompasses the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of a coastal state, a special resource zone created by the Law of the Sea. Although coastal states have exclusive rights to exploit natural resources in the zone, they cannot claim a security interest in the area, agreed Shen Dingli, director of the Center of American Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University. Regardless, China wants to exert control that extends beyond its economic interests, creating the potential for conflict with the U.S. Navy. Dingli stated, “China considers that international law only allows innocent passage for military vessels [in the EEZ], not activities that could be considered to have a military purpose.” Chinese sailors getting drenched by fire hoses while harassing a U.S. Navy ship might make a great headline,, but the real fight is going on much more quietly on land. China has recently begun to engage in a resourceful legal warfare, or “lawfare” strategy to deny access to its coastal seas to warships and aircraft of the United States, Japan, and other countries in the region. This strategy, which was set forth in a recent Chinese defense white paper, proposed the“gradual extension of strategic depth for offshore defensive operations,” and for “enhancing [Chinese] capabilities in integrated maritime operations and nuclear counterattacks.” A 2007 Department of Defense report to Congress on China’s military power explains that Chinese strategists have taken an increasing interest in international law as an instrument to deter adversaries prior to combat. Through an orchestrated program of scholarly articles and symposia, China is working to shape international opinion in favor of a distorted interpretation of the Law of the Sea by shifting scholarly views and national perspectives away from long-accepted norms of freedom of navigation and toward interpretations of increased coastal state sovereign authority. By doing so, China is misreading the law of the sea. The United States should ensure navigational freedom and littoral access as a cornerstone of world maritime security. The U.S. Navy has spent hundreds of millions on building a new generation of high-tech Littoral Combat Ships and implementing “Seabasing” amphibious warfare tactics to effectively operate in the coastal zone—capability that is undermined by restrictive interpretations of the law. But all this planning will be for naught if China continues to advance on the battlefield of international law. The United States would be on a far stronger footing at diplomatic summits and military-to-military meetings if it joined the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention. To ensure the right of U.S. vessels to enjoy unhindered global mobility, the United States should continue resisting excessive coastal state maritime claims through diplomacy and operational challenges. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2009-03-12 10:07 |