U.S. NAVY - South China Sea

China, the bully on the 'block.'

"Why the U.S. Navy is navigating the South China Sea" PBS NewsHour 11/5/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  What do recent U.S. naval forays in the South China Sea -- including Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s visit aboard an aircraft carrier -- mean for tensions with China over the disputed waters?  Hari Sreenivasan speaks to Bonnie Glaser of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Joining me now to help us understand the United States’ recent activity in the South China Sea and what it means is Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

So, first, how big a deal is this, if Ash Carter gets on a very nice ship and decides to take a cruise in territorially disputed waters?

BONNIE GLASER, Center for Strategic and International Studies:  Well, Secretary Carter has done this previously, when he attended the Shangri-La dialogue in June of this year.

He was on a P-8 surveillance aircraft flying over the Malacca Straits.  So it’s not unusual for the United States secretary of defense to be on a military platform out in the South China Sea demonstrating to the region that the United States has an abiding interest in peace and stability in the region.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Is it a provocative act to be in this specific place at this time?

BONNIE GLASER:  Undoubtedly, the Chinese see it as a provocative act, but I think that the other nations in the regions do not.

I think if you look at Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, the other claimants, they are very happy to see the United States’ flag shown in the region.  They supported the United States exercising freedom of navigation around what is called Subi Reef, which is the elevation, the low-tide elevation that the USS Lassen, a destroyer, conducted a freedom of navigation operation in just a few days ago.

So, this is something that the region supports generally.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  The freedom of navigation idea, is it a right that sort of use it or lose it?  If you don’t use it, is that kind of what we’re stressing here by having carrier groups go through?

BONNIE GLASER:  The United States has been doing this of course for centuries.  And since 1979, it has had a freedom of navigation program.

And, in fact, this is the seventh what we call FONOP that has been conducted since 2011 in the South China Sea.  And, yes, I think if the Navy does not sail through, and not just the U.S. Navy, but Australia navy, Japan’s navy doesn’t sail through waters that are high seas, that they are not territorial seas of other countries, even in territorial seas, we can sail through making innocent passage.

And, in fact, that is really what we did in this case.  We sailed through a territorial sea of China’s Subi Reef.  So, yes, you have to exercise it or other countries may claim it and may try to exclude other navies.