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We're not sure why, but Chinese vessels seem to be on an angry, aggressive streak as of late - surrounding and tangling with United States vessels in international waters for seemingly no good reason. The most recent incident being with the U.S.'s USNS Impeccable.
According to the U.S. Department of Defense's release:
On March 8, 2009, five Chinese vessels shadowed and aggressively maneuvered in dangerously close proximity to USNS Impeccable, in an apparent coordinated effort to harass the U.S. ocean surveillance ship while it was conducting routine operations in international waters.The Chinese vessels surrounded USNS Impeccable, two of them closing to within 50 feet, waving Chinese flags and telling Impeccable to leave the area. Because the vessels' intentions were not known, Impeccable sprayed its fire hoses at one of the vessels in order to protect itself. The Chinese crewmembers disrobed to their underwear and continued closing to within 25 feet.
USNS Impeccable's master used bridge-to-bridge radio circuits to inform the Chinese ships in a friendly manner that it was leaving the area and requested a safe path to navigate. A short time later, two of the PRC vessels stopped directly ahead of USNS Impeccable, forcing Impeccable to conduct an emergency "all stop" in order to avoid collision. They dropped pieces of wood in the water directly in front of Impeccable's
path.The incident took place in international waters in the South China Sea, about 75 miles south of Hainan Island.
It's not the first time this month that the Impeccable has been challenged (there were two previous incidents on March 5 and March 7 - no instances of mooning those times though), nor is it the only ship to have encountered bellicose behavior from Chinese vessels.
On March 4, a Chinese Bureau of Fisheries Patrol used a high-intensity spotlight to illuminate the USNS Victorious several times, and then Chinese surveillance aircraft conducted 12 fly-bys the next day. The American boat was allegedly conducting lawful military operations in the Yellow Sea.
A Chinese official has said the Impeccable was in their waters illegally, according to Reuters:
In response to U.S. claims that a naval ship was harassed by the Chinese side, the concerned official in China's embassy to the United States stated: The U.S. navy vessel concerned has been consistently conducting illegal surveying in China's special economic zone.China believes this contravenes international laws of the sea and China's relevant laws. China has repeatedly used diplomatic channels to demand the U.S. side cease unlawful activities in China's special economic zone. China's law enforcement authorities have also sent vessels to carry out law enforcement activities.
The U.S. claim about operating in high seas is out of step with the facts.
We haven't seen such a bizarre instance of wonky military relations since just right after Bush took office in 2001 - when China forced a landing of a U.S. spy plane and the detainment of the plane's crew. Maybe this is a new tradition? Welcoming in new U.S. Presidents with a small reveal of military might mooning?
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"Welcoming in new U.S. Presidents with a small reveal of military might?"
But it isn't revealing of military might. When a Chinese sub surfaced next to the USS Kitty Hawk a few years ago, THAT was revealing of military might. When five low-tech vessels surround an unarmed US Navy research vessel and conduct dangerous manoeuvres while the Chinese navymen strip to their undies, that's just petty. And it makes no sense either. The Chinese Government wants the Americans to NOT see them as a threat. How does harrassing US navy ships in disputed waters that China won't have a chance in hell of defending for at least another ten years at best (maybe) do that? Things such as this only strengthen the hand of the Pentagon in the long run because they make it different for China-friendly interest groups in the US to claim that such a large military industrial complex is unneeded.
Note: different = difficult
The Pentagon was already strengthing it's hand by sending a new battle group to the Pacific logn before this happened.
"When a Chinese sub surfaced next to the USS Kitty Hawk a few years ago, THAT was revealing of military might."
It is still widely speculated that the US carrier group forced the Chinese sub to surface, in which case, it would be another instance of China getting caught with its pants down.
I am pretty sure the whole incident went down something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwbhxvUzpbM
That video is class! The Chinese invents the man-gina lazer but was repelled by American water hoses.
Anyway, I doubt if that Impeccable was just fishing though since it is one of the most advanced surveillance ships in the world.
I wonder how the US will react if a Chinese spy ship tow sophisticated sonars off sensitive US bases. The US have to accept that some nations will not put up with the crap they have been doing all the along.
If the Chinese keep pulling naval crap like following US carrier groups with subs, developing underground submarine bases, multiplying its diesel sub fleet, excellerating development of aircraft carriers, proposing splitting the Pacific Ocean 50/50, and threatening Taiwan (among other things), there is little wonder that the US keeps a close eye on them.
"harassing"?
i suggest american try hard to learn from china and gradually get used to being harrased once in while. it's tactically helpful, especially when you have an empty wallet.
I wonder how the US would react if Chinese parked ships off the coast of California, Hawaii and spied on the US navy.
Let me remind you of Tonkin, USS Maine before you accuse the Chinese of having no good reason sailing within its SEZ borders near Hainan Island.
Another fine example of western yellow journalism!
At bobdoe and BBC1:
The PLAN already likes to push the envelope and does not even follow conventions set by the USSR and NATO during the cold war, when subs went toe to toe and even launched water slugs at each other. Chinese subs are routinely tagged in Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean waters and refuse to leave. Chinese subs have been caught laying radio equipped sonar gear around Hawaii and Guam and the repeated breaks in transoceanic fiber have been traced to clumsy PLAN vampire tapping.
Right now, Chinese subs don't have the range to hover off of California but it is only a matter of time. Of course, the Russians have stopped selling newer submarine technology to China because of China's repeated bad behavior and bad smell.
And btw leastman, the PRC is ramping up its purchase of US bonds because there is nothing left out there.
And I'll bet those PLAN sailors enjoyed being sprayed by other men.
nanheyangrouchuan
i am real amazed at your loyal belief that americaa is the richest. ha!
I only wish you were not one of them:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/03/10/homeless.children/
Nothing "loyal" about it, just an acknowledgment of reality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
No one claims that it means zero poverty. Your straw man is irrelevant.
reality is evey yanks owes $2350 to china or usa owes every chinese $540. so tell me who is richer?
you are too dense to know, unlike RMB, every dollar is an IOU and you are rich in debts, boy.
receivables are worthless if they're never paid back. doesn't matter the two economies are inextricably linked. if one goes to hell, the both will go.
reality is evey yanks owes $2350 to china or usa owes every chinese $540. so tell me who is richer?
you are too dense to know, unlike RMB, every dollar is an IOU and you are rich in debts, boy.
In that case, the hundreds of thousands of Chinese who come to America every year are true freedom-lovers - they come to America despite having to sacrifice a wealthy Chinese lifestyle. And all this time, I thought the Chinese only cared about money.
i am happy to see the waiting line in front of us embassy is becoming daily shorter while 1.5 million chinese returned from usa only to serve their motherland where they can make more money than rotten usa with its almost minus gdp.
oh, i've almost forgot to thank you guys for all tricks and know-hows you taught them during their schooling.
oh, i've almost forgot to thank you guys for all tricks and know-hows you taught them during their schooling.
Too bad it'll be useless to them back in China - the whole reason they left was because you can't do anything without connections in China. If you're Hu Jintao's son, you can be the head of the state-owned company of your choice. If you're China's Steve Jobs, you languish as a nobody in some dusty factory town.
The PLAN already likes to push the envelope and does not even follow conventions set by the USSR and NATO during the cold war, when subs went toe to toe and even launched water slugs at each other.
I don't think it's that big a deal, as long as we understand what the Chinese are doing. To them, it's a low cost, high payoff undertaking, as long as we don't escalate. If we back off, they expand the area off limits to enemy vessels, and make it more difficult for us to detect the characteristics of Chinese subs, even as Chinese vessels are free to prowl in allied waters. If there's an incident, and Chinese sailors die, they get a few new martyrs around which Chinese patriots and nationalists can rally. (Of course, the subtext is that the real rallying point is the Party, which stood up to the Western imperialists).
No matter what the outcome, the Party wins. As long as there is no American escalation other than on a pro forma basis. In these dire economic times, the Party needs to divert attention from its failures - the loss-making see-through buildings financed by state-owned banks will eventually need to be recognized as bum assets, maybe to the tune of trillions of dollars, combined with large losses incurred while speculating on commodities (i.e. locking in contracts and making infrastructure investments abroad with unreliable Third World kleptocrats while prices were multi-year highs). What better diversion than anti-Americanism stoked up over territorial issues?
I think you're all missing the point here-
Chinese seamen, after being sprayed with firehoses, "DISROBED TO THEIR UNDERWEAR".
Sounds a scene from my favorite gay porn, All Aboard the Poopdeck.
I doubt even any gay US sailors were impressed, probably repulsed. Leastman's debt fantasies are a real trip.
naney boy,
actually americans are no better than any homeless beggars at next street corner who could live like a king if he were able to swindle as much as your beloved usa.
Just based on what the western media has reported, the American ship is well within the Chinese exclusive economic zone (within 200 nautical miles, as defined by United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea).
International waters is beyond EEZ boundaries, so I don't get how the American media define 75 miles from Hainan Island as within international waters. A basic fact check would tell you differently.
"A basic fact check would tell you differently."
Check your facts again. As Nanhe said, there is no restriction on the entry of ships of another nationality into your EEZ. The Law of the Sea just forbids economic exploitation and exploration within the zone. Therefore, while the Chinese may have had a right to tell the Americans to stop surveying at that moment, they didn't have a right to ask them to leave. That spot of sea is simply not Chinese territory, which stops at 12 miles from the coast. The US ship was therefore 63 miles into international waters.
Of course, the Americans never ratified the Law of the Sea treaty, so even if they were surveying, it would be hard to penalise them for violating a law they don't observe.
So you mean since the US hasn't ratified the UNCLO, nor is the US accountable to any international court system, it can do whatever it wants in the backyard of other countries? Those days of US military adventurism are far over...China's got all the cards; it has the US by the balls. If the US knows what's good for them, better play by the new rules.
its true "there is no restriction on the entry of ships of another nationality into EEZ", but only on the condition its for economic purpose while military is not allowed. everybody know what U.S.'s US's Impeccable was after---the chinese navy base in sanya where nuke-subs are stationed.
nanhey knows a shit about EEZ. that also prove your selective reading ability.
Update: US Navy WAS hunting subs.
Fair is fair.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/03/11/america/NA-US-China-Incident.php
@ bobdoe
EEZ's are for exclusive economic activity. The territorial boundary for ships is 12 nautical miles and China is a signatory. Ships can pass freely through EEZ waters but cannot conduct economic activity such as drilling, fishing, etc without permission.
@ Derek
So what if the US was checking up on subs, the PRC sends its subs into Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese territorial waters and refuses to surface when caught. And the US ship was in international waters.
China is such a bunch of fen qing cry babies and obvious the PLAN is just a gay parade.
@ Leastman,
Chinese are homeless beggars who owe their cities, cars and internet to the West AND Japan.
The PLAN already likes to push the envelope and does not even follow conventions set by the USSR and NATO during the cold war, when subs went toe to toe and even launched water slugs at each other.
Never mind all that. It'll be interesting to see President 奥加贝's responses to Chinese provocations. Ironically, like the Chinese government, President 奥加贝 could use some foreign distractions to divert attention from the radical domestic agenda Democrats are attempting to ram through Congress without debate.
president 奥加贝?
I thought your president was only half-black.
president 奥加贝?
I thought your president was only half-black.
The reference isn't to his genes. It's to a guy who created hyper-inflation in the process of turning his country from the bread basket of Africa into the continent's basket case. President 奥加贝 has created a bigger budget deficit in two months than Bush did in an entire year, increased debt that cannot be financed unless (1) yields go up (he's unlikely to do this, given the recession) or (2) he prints money, just like his African counterpart. For a while, some people were calling Ben Bernanke "Helicopter Ben", because he advocated "dropping money out of helicopters" to combat deep recessions. The less reverent called him Bergabe, even though he's clearly 100% white.
It seems the PLA is quite desperate to get into an arms race with the US military.
when China forced a landing of a U.S. spy plane and the detainment of the plane's crew.
--------------
you are really good at editing and take things out of context. One pilot was killed by the US plane, can China let go?
This is the whole point of the matter. What are you doing man?
@ Johnny Fei
Wrong characters for Obama. And what of Bush's constant pandering to the business community with regards to China relations? Bringing SP over to this board? I know you are a lee ba roll at heart.
@ winter
That PLAAF pilot was ordered to hit the PC3 to bring it down. The diplomatic stalling occurred because the CCP did not know that the PLA decided to take relations with the US into its own hands.
@Winterfalling
Chinese J-8D fighter top speed: mach 2.2 (2,340kph)
American P-3 reconnaissance plane top speed: 650kph
Please don't let blind nationalism cloud logic and facts. The Chinese pilot died due to overwhelming incompetence. US reconnaissance planes don't fly around the Pacific chasing after Chinese jets in hopes of running into them. The Chinese MiG-copy was playing a game of chicken with the American plane hoping to force it from the area. Unfortunately he ran into the larger, slow-moving plane's wing. It is a hard and fast rule in international law, be it aviation or sea, that the onus lies with the faster moving vessels to stay out of the right of way of the slower plane/ship.
president 奥加贝?
I thought your president was only half-black.
This quote sums up this incident perfectly:
"It's like a man with a criminal record wandering just outside the gate of a family home. When the host comes out to find out what he is doing there, the man complains that the host had violated his rights."
-- Vice Admiral Jin Mao
@bobdoe
If you think that is apt, you only show your own ignorance, and that analogy is just idiotic.
Okay, so the US is a man with a criminal record, China is a "family home," international waters 75 miles from land is "just outside the gate," surrounding and harassing the US vessel is finding "out what he is doing there," and international law is his rights. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
This is a matter of international law, not folk "wisdom."
Buck Rogerz,
Which international law gives the right for one country to spy on another? Especially when the spying activity is conducted within the other country's EEZ? Also, US is not beholden to any international court system, what's there to talk about?
You talk about international waters, by UNCLO definition, international waters is beyond the 200 mile EEZ. The US spy ship was well within the EEZ. It was not on international waters by any definition except US. Do you need an explanation on why the US never ratified the UNCLO?
There is nothing within UNCLO that forbids the US's activities. Period.
@ bobdoe
The same international law that gives China the right to spy on others. How about China's spy ships and subs entering Japan's, India's, Vietnam's, Indonesia's, S. Korean's, the Phillipine's and Taiwan's EEZs AND 12 mile territorial zones, only to absolutely break international law and traditional practice by not turning around (after surfacing for subs) when caught?
How about China dropping sonar gear in those counties' EEZs and territorial waters?
China is such a punk ass shit ball country of gay man ass. But as you can see even the gay guys on the USN ship didn't want PRC sailors. They just turned up the power on those hoses.
@nanheyangrouchuan
What's your point? You don't see China complain, do you?
You seem to have a lot of knowledge about gay sailors, I take your word for it...