China hits out at US on navy row

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

China says a US Navy ship involved in Sunday's confrontation with its vessels off the southern island of Hainan violated international and Chinese law.

Foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said US complaints that five Chinese vessels had harassed the USNS Impeccable were "totally inaccurate".

Beijing says the ship was conducting activities within the waters of its special economic zone.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7934138.stm

[nc4bo]

1. China needs to just stfu. The way I see it, neither country can really afford

a risk of an escalation of hostility. Enough with the saber rattling and shit stirring.

STFU China - don't you have an economic situation that needs some serious attention?

[Vilis Veritas]

2. The U.S. could also take your advice.

We were 'mapping' the ocean floor in the EEZ where China has claimed authority and perversely near their naval submarine bases off Hainan. The 'Impeccable', while it may be a Naval 'mapping' vessel, probably has other features as well.

The U.S. does not recognize the EEZ as China waters and we were the ones snooping around their front door.

[nc4bo]

5. You can't tell me that both countries are "innocent"....

Slimy tactics vs slimy tactics.

But you're right, I should have added that the U.S. needs to quite the saber rattling too. I'm pretty sure we just weren't kicking cans out there.

[Vilis Veritas]

12. We can agree on it then. I was just looking for clarification.

I personally believe that this is a manufactured incident to draw attention away from other more dire issues...

Peace

[cobalt1999]

6. International law doesn't recongnize China's EEZ either.

They don't just get to make claim sections of the ocean that are legally "international".

As long as the U.S. was in recognized international waters, then the Navy can do what it wants.

[Vilis Veritas]

11. EEZ's are real and enforceable.

There is such a thing as an EEZ and the U.S. currently has the LARGEST at over 11 million square kilometers. China is claiming that military 'mapping' in THEIR EEZ is a violation of current maritime law and they do have a point.

"The control of the oceans is currently regulated by the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention that went into effect on November 16, 1994. This law defines oceanic jurisdiction for all nations. It establishes the principle of a 200-nautical-mile limit on a nation's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) whereby a nation controls the undersea resources, primarily fishing and seabed mining, for a distance of 200 nautical miles from its shore."

http://geography.about.com/library/misc/uceez.htm

Stats on who has the largest EEZ are over at Wiki...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_Economic_Zone

I am not sure why you think that the U.S. (or any country for that matter) can just do whatever the hell it pleases...saber rattling, 'mapping' missions and all the other crap are bullshit tactics to ramp up fear and 'manufacture' situations that will then REQUIRE attention.

We are all being played...this is my opinion.

Regards...

[Xithras]

16. An EEZ is not the same as territorial waters, and they can be used freely.

Territorial waters are seas that exclusively belong to a single nation, where that nation can control all ship traffic.

EEZ's are seas that are open to international traffic, but which can only be exploited economically (mining, fishing, etc) by the country that controls it or by nations with its permission.

International waters are seas that are not limited or controlled by any nation.

International Treaty and Law only grants the Chinese (and the American's, within our territorial waters) the right to control exploitable resources. They do not grant any rights beyond that.

[amandabeech]

20. The national security zone is 12 nautical miles.

I'm paraphrasing the article to which you linked.

The EEZ refers to economic exploitation. Nothing done on that ship was of that nature.

[humblebum]

15. 75 miles out to sea isn't exactly at China's front door.

They definitely need to be watched.

[olddad56]

21. when I did that job, international waters was 40 miles offshore..

with todays technology, 75 miles is in their front room. were we eavesdropping on them, you bet your ass. Were we possibly 'ferreting' them, possible. Are both sides bullshitting a little bit, probably. Are we the superpower we were when I did this kind of work, no. Should we be more discreet, yes.

I did this 40 years ago. We knew that Russia would harass us, but not do anything stupid. We knew the chinese very well might. We knew North Korea was crazy.

The 15th of April of this year will mark the 40th anniversary of North Korea shooting down one of our surveillance planes and killing all 31 people on board. Many of those people were my friends. For some of us, the cold war was as real as Vietnam.

[humblebum]

25. Of course we were evesdropping on them. It's pretty common knowledge that

the Chinese have sub pens off along the coast of Hainan. I spent the better part of 3 years of my life in and around Hainan in the Tonkin Gulf and am very familiar with those waters. During the war there was a 12 mile international limit that we recognized. Of course, at that time there were no Chinese submarines there, but there were PT boats that made themselves visible on occasion.

[Grinchie]

3. What no Video of the Aggressive Maneuvering???

He is a multi-million naval spy ship loitering around the area of a Chinese Submarine base.

I'll wait to see the video that undoubtably exists before I pass judgement. The U.S. Military likes to poke sticks in Hornets Nests all the time. Sometimes they get a bigger reaction that the Chickenhawks imagine, and start an international incident.

Remember the EP-3 Orion that overflew Chinese waters in 2001?

I recall that the Navy had all sorts of video of the so called fast attack boats the Iranians used last year. They had no hesitation to show that video, especially since they were being prodded into war by Cheney and Bush.

[tclambert]

4. It was April 1st, 2001 that a Chinese fighter and an American spy plane collided.

Just a couple months into a new President's administration, China has an incident involving an American military asset. Now I'm starting to wonder if they are engineered, if the Chinese are intentionally testing the new President.

In the 2001 incident, a Chinese jet fighter and an American 24 passenger propeller-driven surviellance aircraft, flying in international airspace, collided. The fighter crahsed, its pilot killed. The damaged spy plane made an emergency landing at the nearest airstrip. Unfortunately, that was at a Chinese military base. The Chinese demanded that America apologize. See, it wasn't that their fighter was harassing an American plane, it was clearly the fault of a lumbering prop plane outmaneuvering the jet fighter and forcing it to crash.

Bush crumbled completely. He sent "The letter of the two sorries" apologizing to the Chinese. The Chinese released the 24 crewmen, but kept the plane. It was eventually returned in pieces by the Russians.

I can't help thinking this weak response is part of what led to 9/11. This and the total non-response to the USS Cole attack could have led terrorists to think America under Bush wouldn't hit back.

[tclambert]

7. Oh, and in the Bush incident, America ended up paying China

for the crew members' room and board. (I said crewmen earlier. Turns out there were 3 women in the crew.)

The Chinese did dispute that the plane was in international airspace. Again, they claimed it was in their EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone).

And now that I think about it, it could be that the US military is testing a new President by pushing the Chinese boundaries. Or it could be the two are just a coincidence.

Does anyone recall an incident with the Chinese in 1993, early in the Clinton administration?

[sharp_stick]

9. Instead of the US Military testing the new President

I think it's probably a bit more of China testing the new President. The Chinese are pretty good at poking around when a new administration comes around with interest in what China thinks is it's business.

I don't think we'll see an end for awhile, I would put money on China manufacturing an "incident" involving Taiwan in addition to it's recent bullshit in Tibet. China is hoping that Obama is a lot more dovish than shrubbo was, I think it's a mistake on their part but they aren't known as a Government that gives a shit about anything but their own survival.

[sofa king]

22. I looked that up a while back.

Only a few months into Bush the Smarter's regime, the Tienanmen Square demonstrations began. On June 5, 1989, they mowed down 2000 demonstrators, and that Bush suspended arms sales to China, and relations remained cool throughout those four years.

President Clinton began his "constructive engagement" diplomatic strategy toward China right out of the box. The Chinese were not inclined to bite a hand that might feed them, so there were no major incidents.

One of the underlying issues at hand is that China is almost all growed up now, and the first thing it's going to do when it gets the chance is snap up Taiwan and its priceless semiconductor industry. To do that they're going to have to dump a lot of troops on Taiwan in a hurry, and to do that they're going to have to stage those troops on the Chinese coast without the United States catching wind of it.

Thus China huffs and puffs about its "exclusive economic zone," or whether we're in their territorial waters or airspace. That's all bullshit. What China really wants is to keep American electronic surveillance ships and aircraft from patrolling close enough to mainland China for us to have a chance of sniffing out a troop buildup or gauging the readiness of their navy. Yeah, we can probably see and hear them a dozen different ways from space and who knows how else, but they have to start somewhere, and so they do.

The "unarmed ocean surveillance ship" that the US Navy doesn't seem to want to name is almost certainly an NSA boat (the Navy got control of the ships in a turf battle back in the '60s, but they still work for NSA first and the Navy second). It wouldn't be the first time someone messed with one of them.

[bushmeister0]

28. Oh oh, watch it. You brought up the USS L****ty incident.

That's a no no.

[leveymg]

8. Didn't Biden say Obama would be tested early?

Yes, I think you're right. Fortunately, this one involved fire hoses and sailors in scivvies, rather than crashing aircraft.

Obama has both far more brains and he is what the Chinese said about some of their Emperors, "Favored by Heaven".

[clixtox]

10. Spending (wasting) trillions of borrowed dollars buys us these events!

No other country would push its self into such a touchy area. The USA, while spending more on military offense than the rest of the world combined, is in the business of intimidating every other country in the world (except Israel).

Our hubris, arrogance and ability to effectively propagandize the ingenuous create these incidents.

Us, the USA, is responsible for antagonizing all of those sovereign nations unwilling to kowtow. Like Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, China, Russia, Venezuela and Cuba now, and many others through the years.

Our self-righteous claim to be on the moral high ground is so absolutely absurd, but this propaganda is still believed by most of the Amerikkkan sheeple to be the case.

The USA is a terrorist nation.

We systematically commit war crimes at will and without compunctions or a conscience, just slimy public relations.

It is too bad that the USA population isn't as knowledgeable as most of those posting here on DU.

Tragic for the whole world...

[sharp_stick]

13. I beg to differ

the Chinese and Russians are two countries who routinely put their troops into touchy areas. The Russians were moving into, or damned near to Canadian airspace when Obama was visiting Ottawa and they now routinely run flybys and probing missions around NATO exercises, NATO countries and former Soviet bloc countries.

The Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans are not some poor independant nations being terrorized by a violent invader.

They have serious global aspirations equal to or in excess of anything the United States does. If the Chinese could roll into Tibet or Taiwan and not worry about pretty nasty economic and military retaliation I think the tanks would be on the ground within hours. With the pretty much President for life Putin in charge of Russia you could say goodbye to the sovereign nations of anything that used to be a Soviet Bloc and probably Norway for good measure just because.

[clixtox]

14. I agree a little bit but...

no other country has serious global aspirations that compare to the USA.

No one!

We spend as much or more for national offense as the whole rest of the world's countries combined.

That says it all right there!

No other country rolls into other countries like we do and have done throughout our relatively short but unbelievably sordid history.

Really!

It truly is horrible what has been done in our names.

From the American Indians we decimated in a genocidal orgy of massacres and unspeakable terror, to the Hawaiian Islands, to the Philippines, Vietnam, Panama, Iraq, Grenada, Afghanistan we are the only country that invades at will. (Except Israel)

You make a bunch of wild suppositions about the supposed "Axis of Evil" countries, and even include Norway as a potential victim of Russia, You have been seduced by the pablum fed to the sheeple. Check it out if you dare <http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5564>

[Xenotime]

17. This is a result of rogue ship captain who still think * is commander-in-chief

They need to wise up to that fact and not fuck things up further for Obama.

[ohio2007]

18. ?

maybe you should be telling Barack to 'stand down' with the ballistic missile defense exercise going on along the Korean coast.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/03/205_40981.html

those are anti missile defense ships and if they shoot down the North Korean missile.....You'll know who authorized it.
If the missile fails on its own, dunno how Kim is going to keep his pinhead from going ballistic

[Thothmes]

19. Of course, maybe the ships captain was there on Obama's orders.

[defendandprotect]

23. "The Chinese are coming! The Chinese are coming! The Chinese are coming! ----

and maybe this is another attempt at a Gulf of Tonkin event . . .!!

[Doctor Cynic]

24. "Yes, Barack. It's us. If you want us to fund your stimulus package you'd better lay off."

[Incitatus]

26. Does China have ships conducting surveillance within 200 miles of our shore?

[bushmeister0]

27. I think this is the operative phrase here.

"China says a US Navy ship involved in Sunday's confrontation with its vessels off the southern island of Hainan violated international and Chinese law."

Chinese law. Hmmm . . . might they be implying they have the right to arrest the sailors on board, a la the EP-3 incident in 2001?

Since we've quickly deployed a DDG to escort the Impeccable, I'm thinking not, though. The threat of such action most certainly prompted the rapid arrival of the Chung Hoon, I'm sure.

[KillCapitalism]

29. Grr...the Chinese are brutish thugs.

If a large asteroid were to hit earth in the near future, I hope it would land on Beijing.

Wait...no...they'd blame that on us.