When United States Moves To Defend Its Unarmed Ship, China Sends Armed Patrol Boats To International Waters
Chinese ships nearly caused a collision with an unarmed U.S. Navy surveillance ship peacefully traversing international waters, causing the United States to send an Aegis destroyer to escort the American ship.
But then China further escalated the incident by sending its most advanced armed patrol boat, the Yuzheng 311, to the area, according to news reports.
Those developments came as a Chinese leader questioned the soundness of U.S. Treasury securities, in comments seen as threatening to use vast Chinese holdings of those securities to damage the value of all U.S. government debt.
In the South China Sea incident, conflict began as Chinese boats swerved in front of the USNS Impeccable, an unarmed ocean surveillance ship, and stopped suddenly, placing pieces of wood in the path of the Impeccable, forcing the surveillance ship to halt abruptly.
To protect the Impeccable, the Navy then tasked an Arleigh Burke Class destroyer, the USS Chung-Hoon (DDG 93), to escort the Impeccable. After that, China upped the ante by ordering its patrol vesselp to the area.
This may be the highest tension between the United States and China since — on April 1, 2001 – China sent a fighter plane near a U.S. Navy EP-3E Aries intelligence- surveillance plane flying peacefully in international airspace. The Chinese plane came steadily closer to the American plane, then crashed into it, badly damaging the Aries. While the Chinese plane plunged into the sea, the American crew members struggled to keep the Aries from following it.
Battling to remain aloft, the Aries radioed a distress call that the Chinese refused to acknowledge. When the Aries then made an emergency landing on Hainan Island, Chinese troops stormed the plane and seized the two dozen U.S. Navy men and women in its crew and attempted to discover U.S. intelligence secrets from equipment on the plane. The Chinese held them prisoner for 10 days, until then-President Bush had the U.S. government issue a statement apologizing for the incident, saying twice that the United States was “very sorry” the Aries landed on Chinese territory.
While the new incident with the Impeccable ship occurred in international waters, China illegally claims the waters either as an exclusive economic zone, or says all of the South China Sea is Chinese territorial waters. China also claims the independent nation of Taiwan belongs to China, with Beijing threatening in a law to invade Taiwan and seize it by force if Taipei doesn’t capitulate and surrender voluntarily to Chinese rule. China also has pushed into Japanese waters, alarming leaders in Tokyo.
China stated that the Yuzheng 311 will patrol the alleged exclusive economic zone and strengthen fishery administration.
As well, Beijing is clamping down on demonstrations and taking harsh actions in Tibet.
The hostile developments are an illustration of how China apparently is far less concerned with its public image now than it was just before and during the summer Olympics in Beijing.
And there’s more. In a financial salvo, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao expressed concern Friday about the safety and value of Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasury securities that total in the hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps as high as $1 trillion.
That was seen by some analysts as a not-subtle reminder to Washington that it needs continued Chinese willingness to lend money to the United States by purchasing its securities.
China enjoys a trade surplus with the United States exceeding $200 billion a year, which has permitted the Chinese to roll up huge foreign reserves. At the same time, it also is true that a huge portion of the Chinese economy is dependent upon U.S. willingness to continue buying Chinese goods, and congressional willingness to refrain from limiting imports of Chinese goods.
Those trade surpluses have helped China bankroll an immense military buildup, including procurement of hundreds of missiles aimed toward Taiwan, long-range bombers, destroyers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and multiple classes of submarines, including the Jin Class nuclear-powered subs with nuclear-tipped missiles having a range of almost 5,000 miles.