US Navy operations send muddled message to China

When a United States warship recently sailed near a Chinese-controlled artificial island in the South China Sea, it signalled the White House was finally taking a tougher stance on Chinese behaviour in the waters.

Beijing described the move as an illegal incursion into the waters around Subi Reef, which is also claimed by Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam. Washington labelled it a freedom of navigation exercise that was aimed at demonstrating that the US does not recognise Chinese claims in the area.

Following months of debate inside the Barack Obama administration, the White House chose the option that involved the least provocative actions by the US Navy, partly to avoid antagonising China too much ahead of a climate change conference in Paris where Chinese cooperation will be crucial.

According to five people familiar with the operation, the USS Lassen conducted what is known under international law as innocent passage when it sailed within 12 nautical miles (22.2km) of Subi Reef, which could leave the legal significance of the US manoeuvre open to different interpretations.

One option presented by the Pentagon, for the destroyer to sail near to Mischief Reef, another artificial island, has not been approved by the White House. The legal differences stemming from the geography meant it would have required more provocative action by the ship to demonstrate the same point of principle. “We conducted a freedom of navigation operation challenging excessive maritime claims in accordance with international law,” said a US defence official.

US officials say the navy will conduct further such freedom-of-navigation operations in the region, probably around two a quarter. They also argue that the decision for Ashton Carter, Defence Secretary, to visit on the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the middle of the South China Sea last week, shows that the Obama administration is not soft-pedalling on the point it is trying to make to the Chinese.

While China and its neighbours have fought over the South China Sea for decades, Beijing has become increasingly assertive in recent years. Aside from boosting maritime patrols, China has built five man-made islands and has constructed airstrips that are capable of handling military jets.

The United Nations Law of the Sea lets nations claim 12 nautical miles of territorial waters around natural islands, but does not convey the same rights to submerged features — such as Subi and Mischief — that have been raised above sea level through human activity. While the US does not take a position on the sovereignty of disputed islands in the South China Sea, it wanted to demonstrate that it does not accept that any nation has a claim to territorial waters around what were once submerged features.

Commander Robert Francis, captain of the USS Lassen, said his ship got within 6 to 7 nautical miles of the artificial island at Subi Reef and gave the Chinese no advance warning. The surveillance plane accompanying the operation did not go within the 12 miles around the land feature and the ship did not fly any helicopters, but its radars were operating during the operation.

divided over how to send a signal

Cmdr Francis said the Lassen was tailed by a Chinese destroyer for around ten days, including during the day of the Subi Reef operation. On entering the waters around the reef, the Chinese told the Lassen: “You are in Chinese waters. What is your intention?” He responded that the Lassen was “operating in accordance with international law”.

The people familiar with the US debate said the White House had ultimately decided that the operation should be conducted in a low-key way that would make the point to the Chinese without sparking too much friction. But that decision has angered many Pentagon and Navy officials who think the US should adopt a more forceful stance.

“It makes the (Obama) administration look weak externally and internally divided,” said Dr Euan Graham, director of the international security programme at the Lowy Institute in Australia. “Is the US serious about this, or is it doing it in such a cautious way that it is going through the motions?”

Some critics suggested that the US operation was no different from when several Chinese warships recently made an innocent passage through waters surrounding the Aleutian Islands off the Alaskan coast

Mr Graham said that while most countries in the region were relieved when the US conducted the Subi operation, a “sense of anticlimax” emerged amid the signals that the freedom of navigation exercise was less assertive than advertised.

He contrasted the response with Vietnam, which announced that it would allow a Japanese warship to visit Cam Ranh Bay just as Chinese President Xi Jinping was finishing a visit to the nation. “If you are going to send a signal, that is how to send it.”

The Subi operation marked the latest example of the Obama administration debating how hard to push back against China over everything from cyberattacks to maritime tensions. While the Pentagon has been pushing for tougher action, Ms Susan Rice, National Security Adviser, has taken a more cautious stance that has frustrated some officials who believe the US seems like a paper tiger.

Mr Chris Johnson, a former China analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the move was consistent with the restrained stance the White House has taken on China and was evident in the way officials were urged not to discuss the freedom of navigation operations after the event.

Mr Hugh White, a China and security expert at the Australian National University, said there was a real muddle over what the USS Lassen had done, with conflicting messages from the US government.

“First, it shows the US as being unprofessional in the presentation of its legal case,” said Mr White. “But second, more importantly, it shows that the legal issues were never more than a pretext for a gesture which was always intended primarily to make a strategic point. That was that the US is determined to push back (against) China’s increasingly assertive maritime posture in the western Pacific, and reaffirm its own position as the preponderant maritime power.”

Mr White said the move had been strategically ineffective as China had ignored it. “Rather than displaying US strength and resolve, the transit ends up revealing US uncertainty and weakness.”

Some legal experts suggested that the Lassen transit could be considered under international law to be both innocent passage and a freedom of navigation operation that challenged Chinese maritime claims. For instance, the fact that it did not give the Chinese warning was an effective challenge to Chinese insistence that warships give notice when entering Chinese territorial waters. FINANCIAL TIMES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Demetri Sevastopulo and Geoff Dyer are The Financial Times’ bureau chief and correspondent in Washington repsectively.