Cruelbreed
03-11-2009, 03:11 AM
U.S. navy provoked South China Sea incident, China says
By Mark Mcdonald
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
HONG KONG: China lashed out Tuesday at the United States, accusing a U.S. Navy ship of violating international law during a tense confrontation near a secret Chinese submarine base.
The Pentagon said five Chinese vessels blocked and surrounded a U.S. surveillance ship, the Impeccable, in international waters on Sunday. One of the ships came within 25 feet, or 8 meters, of the U.S. boat, the Pentagon said.
"The U.S. claims are gravely in contravention of the facts and confuse black and white, and they are totally unacceptable to China," Ma Zhaoxu, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said at a briefing Tuesday in Beijing.
He did not specify what laws the American ship had broken but said the Impeccable had "conducted activities in China's exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea without China's permission."
Although the United States and other countries consider most of the South China Sea to be international waters, China claims an economic exclusion zone extending 200 nautical miles, or 230 miles, from its coastlines.
The encounter on Sunday was the latest in a series of recent incidents in which Chinese ships shadowed the towering, twin-hulled Impeccable. The Pentagon said the confrontation took place in the South China Sea, about 120 kilometers, or 75 miles, from Hainan Island, where China has an underground naval complex with submarine caves.
A U.S. Navy photograph obtained by The New York Times showed a Chinese sailor holding a long pole, and a navy spokesman confirmed that the Chinese had used a grappling hook to try to snag a cable that the Impeccable was using to tow an underwater listening device known as a Surtass array.
"In short, this vessel is used by the military to track submarines," said a report from GlobalSecurity.org, a defense-related Web site, in describing the Impeccable. The report also called the ship "the quietest vessel the government operates, outside of submarines themselves."
"It's not clear what the Chinese intentions were," Captain Jeff Breslau, a spokesman for U.S. Pacific Command, said Tuesday from the command's headquarters in Hawaii. "There have been a few incidents over the past week and a half. But who orchestrated this latest one, and why, we don't know. We haven't seen this level of activity recently."
Breslau characterized the Chinese maneuvers as "dangerous," although he said a hot line linking Admiral Timothy Keating, the head of the Command, with his military counterpart in Beijing was not used.
The captain said the Impeccable had radioed the Chinese vessels using an accepted international frequency. The U.S. ship, which carries no fixed armaments, told the Chinese that it had the right of safe passage in international waters.
"We spoke to them, we didn't warn them," Breslau said. In previous incidents, he added, the Chinese have responded, in English, but in the latest encounter they did not reply.
Keating would not comment Tuesday on the Chinese Foreign Ministry's response, and Breslau said further U.S. reaction would come through the State Department.
"They're working this through diplomatic channels," he said.
Keating, in a briefing last month in Hong Kong, expressed frustration over what he called a continuing lack of transparency on the part of senior military officials in China.
He said Washington remained concerned about Chinese military expansion, especially in the development of area-denial weapons, antisatellite operations and cyberwarfare.
Increasing patrols and wider deployments of Chinese submarines were less worrisome, he said.
"Their submarines," the admiral said, "are not keeping me up at night."
The Impeccable incident came just a week after the two countries resumed high-level talks between their militaries. The discussions, known as mil-to-mil dialogue, was broken off last year by the Chinese over a $6.5 billion U.S. arms deal with Taiwan.
The dispute also comes following a recent visit to China by the U.S. secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her stop in Beijing was part of a tour of the Asia-Pacific region, her first overseas trip for President Barack Obama's administration.
Soon after Clinton left China, the State Department angered Beijing with a broad set of criticisms of its human rights record in 2008.
Zhang Jing contributed from Beijing.
By Mark Mcdonald
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
HONG KONG: China lashed out Tuesday at the United States, accusing a U.S. Navy ship of violating international law during a tense confrontation near a secret Chinese submarine base.
The Pentagon said five Chinese vessels blocked and surrounded a U.S. surveillance ship, the Impeccable, in international waters on Sunday. One of the ships came within 25 feet, or 8 meters, of the U.S. boat, the Pentagon said.
"The U.S. claims are gravely in contravention of the facts and confuse black and white, and they are totally unacceptable to China," Ma Zhaoxu, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said at a briefing Tuesday in Beijing.
He did not specify what laws the American ship had broken but said the Impeccable had "conducted activities in China's exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea without China's permission."
Although the United States and other countries consider most of the South China Sea to be international waters, China claims an economic exclusion zone extending 200 nautical miles, or 230 miles, from its coastlines.
The encounter on Sunday was the latest in a series of recent incidents in which Chinese ships shadowed the towering, twin-hulled Impeccable. The Pentagon said the confrontation took place in the South China Sea, about 120 kilometers, or 75 miles, from Hainan Island, where China has an underground naval complex with submarine caves.
A U.S. Navy photograph obtained by The New York Times showed a Chinese sailor holding a long pole, and a navy spokesman confirmed that the Chinese had used a grappling hook to try to snag a cable that the Impeccable was using to tow an underwater listening device known as a Surtass array.
"In short, this vessel is used by the military to track submarines," said a report from GlobalSecurity.org, a defense-related Web site, in describing the Impeccable. The report also called the ship "the quietest vessel the government operates, outside of submarines themselves."
"It's not clear what the Chinese intentions were," Captain Jeff Breslau, a spokesman for U.S. Pacific Command, said Tuesday from the command's headquarters in Hawaii. "There have been a few incidents over the past week and a half. But who orchestrated this latest one, and why, we don't know. We haven't seen this level of activity recently."
Breslau characterized the Chinese maneuvers as "dangerous," although he said a hot line linking Admiral Timothy Keating, the head of the Command, with his military counterpart in Beijing was not used.
The captain said the Impeccable had radioed the Chinese vessels using an accepted international frequency. The U.S. ship, which carries no fixed armaments, told the Chinese that it had the right of safe passage in international waters.
"We spoke to them, we didn't warn them," Breslau said. In previous incidents, he added, the Chinese have responded, in English, but in the latest encounter they did not reply.
Keating would not comment Tuesday on the Chinese Foreign Ministry's response, and Breslau said further U.S. reaction would come through the State Department.
"They're working this through diplomatic channels," he said.
Keating, in a briefing last month in Hong Kong, expressed frustration over what he called a continuing lack of transparency on the part of senior military officials in China.
He said Washington remained concerned about Chinese military expansion, especially in the development of area-denial weapons, antisatellite operations and cyberwarfare.
Increasing patrols and wider deployments of Chinese submarines were less worrisome, he said.
"Their submarines," the admiral said, "are not keeping me up at night."
The Impeccable incident came just a week after the two countries resumed high-level talks between their militaries. The discussions, known as mil-to-mil dialogue, was broken off last year by the Chinese over a $6.5 billion U.S. arms deal with Taiwan.
The dispute also comes following a recent visit to China by the U.S. secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her stop in Beijing was part of a tour of the Asia-Pacific region, her first overseas trip for President Barack Obama's administration.
Soon after Clinton left China, the State Department angered Beijing with a broad set of criticisms of its human rights record in 2008.
Zhang Jing contributed from Beijing.