FONOPs

U.S. warship challenges Chinese illegal claims in South China Sea

BY JESSE JOHNSON

The guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer prepares to refuel at sea with the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the Pacific Ocean in November 2017

China sent military vessels and aircraft in an attempt to expel a U.S. warship asserting international freedom of navigation rights in the Paracel Islands of the disputed South China Sea on Friday.
The U.S. Navy said in a statement that guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer had conducted a “freedom of navigation operation” (FONOP) without requesting permission from Beijing — or from Hanoi or Taipei, which also claim the archipelago.
The FONOP “challenged the restrictions on innocent passage imposed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam and also contested China’s claim to straight baselines enclosing the Paracel Islands,” said Cmdr. Reann Mommsen, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet.
Under international law, ships of all states — including their warships — enjoy the right of innocent passage through territorial seas.
Mommsen said that the sailing had also “challenged China’s 1996 declaration of straight baselines encompassing the Paracel Islands.”
Beijing has effectively drawn a line around the entire Paracels archipelago in a bid to claim the entire territory, despite rival claims.
Mommsen noted that international law does not permit continental states like China to establish baselines around entire island groups. 

Using these baselines, China, she said, “has attempted to claim more internal waters, territorial sea, exclusive economic zone, and continental shelf than it is entitled under international law.”

The USS Wayne E. Meyer conducted a similar operation last month, sailing within 12 nautical miles (22 km) of the contested Fiery Cross and Mischief Reefs, two Chinese-occupied islands in the South China Sea.
That sailing came just days after the Pentagon issued a strong statement that accused Beijing of employing bullying tactics in the waterway, citing what it said was “coercive interference” in oil and gas activities in waters claimed by Vietnam.
Beijing claims much of the South China Sea, though the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims in the waters, where the Chinese, U.S., Japanese and some Southeast Asian navies routinely operate.
Neither Japan nor the U.S. have claims in the waters, but both allies have routinely stated their commitment to a “free and open Indo-Pacific.”
“U.S. forces routinely conduct freedom of navigation assertions throughout the world, including in the South China Sea, as a routine part of daily operations,” Mommsen said.
“The Freedom of Navigation Program’s missions are conducted peacefully and without bias for or against any particular country,” she added.
Washington has lambasted Beijing for its moves in the waterway, including the construction of man-made islands — such as those in the Paracel chain and further south in the Spratlys — some of which are home to military-grade airfields and advanced weaponry.
The U.S. fears the outposts could be used to restrict free movement in the waterway, which includes vital sea lanes through which about $3 trillion in global trade passes each year. 

The U.S. military regularly conducts FONOPs in the area.
Beijing says it has deployed the advanced weaponry to the islets for defensive purposes, but experts say this is part of a concerted bid to cement de facto control of the waters.
In a defense white paper released for the first time in years in July, China highlighted a new emphasis on “combat readiness and military training in real combat conditions” and China’s new war-fighting capabilities in the Western Pacific and South China Sea.
Beijing, the white paper said, “has organized naval parades in the South China Sea” and “conducted a series of live force-on-force exercises” while its air force “has conducted combat patrols in the South China Sea and security patrols in the East China Sea, and operated in the West Pacific.”

Stop the Beijing Bully in the South China Sea

Destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer Sails Past Fiery Cross, Mischief Reefs in Latest FONOPS
By Megan Eckstein

Sailors man the rails aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG 108) as the ship transits along the coast of Valparaiso, Chile during a parade of ships on Nov. 19, 2018. 

A U.S. destroyer conducted a freedom of navigation operation in the Spratly Islands today.
Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG-108) sailed within 12 nautical miles of both Fiery Cross Reef and Mischief Reef today to challenge excessive maritime claims in the South China Sea, U.S. 7th Fleet spokeswoman Cmdr. Reann Mommsen told USNI News.
“U.S. Forces operate in the Indo-Pacific region on a daily basis, including in the South China Sea. All operations are designed in accordance with international law and demonstrate that the United States will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows,” she said.
Ships operating the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command have conducted several FONOPS this year, with officials saying they wanted FONOPS to be viewed as more routine operations. 

In late May, USS Preble (DDG-88) sailed near the Scarborough Shoal, and earlier that month Preble and USS Chung-Hoon (DDG-93) steamed within 12 nautical miles of the Gaven and Johnson Reefs.
In February, Preble and USS Spruance (DDG-111) steamed within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef, an artificial island China built up in the Spratly Islands chain. 

In January, USS McCampbell (DDG-85) steamed past the Paracel Islands.

Ens. Christian Meyer practices visit, board, search and seizure (VBSS) techniques aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG 108) on Aug. 22, 2019. Wayne E. Meyer is deployed to the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations in support of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. 

The South China Sea continues to be a key location where U.S. warships promote freedom of navigation and open international waterways, and also where China has taken a stand this summer. 

A group of Chinese warships, including aircraft carrier Liaoning, sailed through the South China Sea earlier this summer, operating in territorial waters of the Philippines and near Japan.
When Wayne E. Meyer conducted its FONOP today, other ships were in the vicinity, but all interactions were considered routine, a source told USNI News.
Today’s operation comes just after China denied a U.S. Navy request to send a warship to the eastern port city of Qingdao, Reuters first reported. 

The U.S. and China are locked in a growing trade war, and while U.S. Navy ships have made port visits in Chinese cities previously, the rejection of the request may reflect those growing tensions between the two economic powers. 

China also denied two warships access to Hong Kong, the semi-autonomous islands where protests against the government in Beijing are ongoing.
The full statement from U.S. 7th Fleet:
“The guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG 108) conducted a Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP) in the South China Sea, Aug. 28 (local time). Wayne E. Meyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of Fiery Cross and Mischief Reefs in order to challenge excessive maritime claims and preserve access to the waterways as governed by international law. U.S. Forces operate in the Indo-Pacific region on a daily basis, including in the South China Sea. All operations are designed in accordance with international law and demonstrate that the United States will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows. That is true in the South China Sea as in other places around the globe. We conduct routine and regular Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) as we have done in the past and will continue to in the future. FONOPs are not about any one country, nor are they about making political statements.”

The Necessary War

SAYING CHINA IS BLOCKING TRILLIONS IN OIL AND GAS, U.S. WILL SEND NAVY FOR ASIA DRILLS
BY TOM O'CONNOR 

The United States has accused China of preventing Southeast Asian countries from accessing trillions of dollars worth of untapped oil and gas reserves in the South China Sea as the Pentagon planned to hold its first exercise with regional powers near the strategic region.
In a press statement, State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said Thursday that the "United States is deeply concerned that China is continuing its interference with Vietnam's longstanding oil and gas activities in Vietnam's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) claim" following recent incursions there by Chinese survey ship Haiyang Dizhi 8 and an armed escort. 

Beijing has laid vast claims to the South China Sea and does not recognize boundaries established there by a number of Southeast Asian nations who are supported by the U.S. 

The most recent incident occurred last week near Vanguard Bank, a Vietnam-administered outpost in the Spratly Islands, and Ortagus attributed the move to China "pressuring Vietnam over its work with a Russian energy firm and other international partners."
"China's actions undermine regional peace and security, impose economic costs on Southeast Asian states by blocking their access to an estimated $2.5 trillion in unexploited hydrocarbon resources, and demonstrate China's disregard for the rights of countries to undertake economic activities in their EEZs, under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, which China ratified in 1996," Ortagus said.
Chinese survey vessel Haiyang Dizhi 8 conducts research on behalf of the Guangzhou Marine Geological Survey in this photo shared July 25, 2018. The ship once again entered what Vietnam's exclusive economic zone near Vanguard Bank of South China Sea's Spratly Islands on August 13 of this year.
Washington has signed, but not ratified the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, though it justified sending warships through Beijing-claimed waters in the South China Sea by citing "freedom of navigation" operations outlined in the deal. 

China has responded by scrambling military ships and aircraft to intercept the U.S. vessels in the resource-rich region.
While China may have backed Vietnam's communist revolutionaries in their victory over U.S. and allied local forces decades ago, Beijing and Hanoi quickly became rivals and engaged in deadly border clashes, including near the Spratly Island, lasting up until the 1990s. 

In 1995, Vietnam and the U.S. normalized their relations, putting pressure on China as the region's geopolitical dynamics shifted.
As the U.S. began to increasingly assert its own presence in the South China Sea, it has sought to push back on China there, exploiting territorial tensions between Beijing and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a 10-nation grouping of which Vietnam was a part. 

Washington sided with Hanoi in 2014 when China moved its Hai Yang Shi You 981 oil rig near the disputed Paracel Islands and sank a Vietnamese fishing vessel amid a standoff there.
Last year, the U.S. sent a historic message to China by sending Nimitz-class supercarrier USS Carl Vinson to dock in Vietnam in March. 

In May, the U.S. disinvited China from the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise involving Vietnam and several other ASEAN states over Beijing's increased militarization of the Spratly Islands.
The U.S. also began planning joint drills with ASEAN, but it was China that secured an exercise alongside the regional collective months later in October. 

That same month, then-Defense Secretary James Mattis confirmed that a U.S.-ASEAN exercise was still in the works and on both The Bangkok Post and Nikkei Asian Review reported Thursday that the maneuvers were set to begin early next month in Thailand.

A map created July 30, 2012 details the multinational, overlapping territorial disputes involving Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam in the South China Sea. Many of these countries, especially China, have expanded their presence on contested land masses known as the Spratly Islands and an incident on August 13 of this year took place on the westernmost stretch of reefs.

Tensions in the South China Sea add to an array of issues already putting a major strain on ties between the world's top two economies. 

President Donald Trump and Chinese Xi Jinping are embroiled in a multibillion-dollar trade war of tit-for-tat tariffs with Vietnam finding itself right in the middle of the feuding powerhouses.
Beijing has also repeatedly accused Washington of interfering in its internal affairs, both in the ongoing protests that U.S. officials and politicians have expressed support for in the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong and in a recent $8 billion arms sale involving F-16V fighters jets to Taiwan, an independent island nation also claimed by Beijing.

China’s South China Sea Militarization Has Peaked

Artificial islands are becoming more trouble than they’re worth.
BY STEVEN STASHWICK
Activists burn Chinese flags and display anti-China placards during a protest at a park in Manila on June 18, 2019. 

Following years of Russian noncompliance, the United States officially withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty on Aug. 2. 

The Cold War-era arms control agreement had banned land-based missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, and the next day the new U.S. defense secretary, Mark Esper, told reporters that he wanted to counter China’s massive missile inventory “sooner rather than later.” 

China responded furiously.
Ironically, the threat comes as the most conspicuous flash point between the two countries, China’s military buildup on its artificial islands in the South China Sea, appears to be reaching a peak. 

In part, this is because of limits on the bases’ military usefulness in future conflict, but the key reason is that the backlash and counterbalancing its militarization encourages from the United States and other countries threaten the islands’ usefulness as a political signal at home, something that the Communist Party may value far more than their actual military potency.
Since 2013, China has constructed more than 3,000 dredged-up acres across seven features that are now studded with long-range sensor arrays, port facilities, runways, and reinforced bunkers for fuel and weapons. 

That’s a huge military footprint, despite Chinese dictator Xi Jinping’s nominal 2015 pledge not to militarize the islands and the Foreign Ministry’s claims that these “necessary defense facilities” are provided primarily for maritime safety and natural disaster support.
But as conspicuous as the bases’ capacity to project China’s offensive power is how little of that might Beijing has actually deployed there. 

The Pentagon’s latest report on China’s military notes that no new militarization has been observed since China placed air defense and anti-ship missiles in the Spratlys last year. 

Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently remarked that if China’s militarization of the islands had plateaued, it was because they had achieved the military capability China required of them. 

If that’s true, then China requires much less of those bases militarily than their apparent potential to deliver.
Despite the islands’ scale, China’s maximalist regional claims, and its aggressive coercion of regional rivals, tension between China’s political and military incentives suggest it has little more to gain from expanding its buildup in the Spratly Islands and it could even have quite a bit to lose. 

Additional overt militarization doesn’t help China exert control over the South China Sea in peacetime and may not be decisive in wartime. 

It also encourages a greater and more public U.S. military presence, undermining the islands’ political symbolism. 

It also reduces China’s room for diplomacy and de-escalation in a crisis, increasing the potential for an uncertain and potentially embarrassing clash that would risk further undermining the party’s legitimacy.
The United States can leverage those incentives to its advantage as it debates how to implement the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy, but if it pushes back too hard, the Communist Party may feel it has to escalate to preserve its legitimacy.
China is hardly reticent in asserting its maximalist claims over the South China Sea. 

Its law enforcement and paramilitary maritime militia vessels, often operating out of those same bases in the Spratly Islands, keep up a strong campaign of harassment and coercion against coastal states with competing claims and in contravention of provisions in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and a 2016 international arbitration ruling that nullified most of China’s claims.
But compared with the expanding shadow of China’s gray-zone activity, the military presence on its Spratly bases is anemic. 

In early 2016, U.S. intelligence assessed that those bases would be capable of hosting significant force projection capabilities by the end of that year. 

Three years on from that assessment, China has yet to deploy warplanes or other long-range strike weapons that can hit land targets to the islands, though they appear more than capable of accommodating them.
One explanation is that the region’s climate simply isn’t hospitable to China’s most advanced military systems. 

Chinese state media reported in 2017 on special measures required to protect a short deployment of J-11 fighter jets to the Paracel Islands from the island’s heat and humidity. 

More recent reports claim that China’s environmental problems in the Spratlys are even more serious, with heat and humidity causing structures to crumble, mechanical equipment to fail, and even some weapon systems to break down. 

This is on top of persistent concerns about the artificial islands’ ability to withstand a major Pacific weather event—and a poor record of equipment and infrastructure maintenance in general in an often corruption-riddled People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Peacetime assets but wartime liabilities
The islands are useful during peacetime to monitor rivals’ air and sea movements and as a base for coast guard and maritime militia operations against those countries’ fishermen and hydrocarbon exploitation. 

But increasing its overt military capability on the islands neither increases China’s practical civil control over waters crowded with rival fishermen and law enforcement vessels nor deters the presence of U.S. and other foreign warships and planes. 

And in wartime, that additional militarization may not translate to a decisive advantage over the United States anyway.

The Necessary War

South China Sea: Chinese fighter jets deployed to contested island
By Brad Lendon

ImageSat International (ISI).

Hong Kong -- A satellite image obtained by CNN shows China has deployed at least four J-10 fighter jets to the contested Woody Island in the South China Sea, the first known deployment of fighter jets there since 2017.
The image was taken Wednesday and represents the first time J-10s have been seen on Woody or any Chinese-controlled islands in the South China Sea, according to ImageSat International, which supplied the image to CNN.
The deployment comes as tensions remain high in the South China Sea and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping prepares to meet Donald Trump at the G-20 summit in Japan next week.


Analysts who looked at the satellite photo for CNN said both the placement of the planes out in the open and accompanying equipment is significant and indicates the fighter jets were on the contested island for up to 10 days.
"They want you to notice them. Otherwise they would be parked in the hangars," said Peter Layton, a former Royal Australian Air Force officer and fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute. 

"What message do they want you to take from them?"
Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center, said the deployment is designed to "demonstrate it is their territory and they can put military aircraft there whenever they want."
"It also makes a statement that they can extend their air power reach over the South China Sea as required or desired," Schuster said.
The J-10 jets have a combat range of about 500 miles (740 kilometers), putting much of the South China Sea and vital shipping lands within reach, Schuster said.
The four planes are not carrying external fuel tanks, the analysts said. 

That suggests they were to be refueled on the island, so the plan may be to keep them there awhile.

Chinese J-10 fighters fly at Airshow China in Zhuhai in 2010.

"It could be an early training deployment as part of getting the J-10 squadron operationally ready for an ADIZ (air defense identification zone) declaration," Layton said. 

"This activity may be the new normal."
China said in 2016 it reserved the right to impose an ADIZ over the South China Sea, which would require aircraft flying over the waters to first notify Beijing. 

It set up an ADIZ over the East China Sea in 2013, prompting an outcry from Japan and the United States, but the zone has not been fully enforced.
Woody Island (đảo Phú Lâm) is the largest of the Paracel chain, also known as the Hoàng Sa.
The Paracels (Hoàng Sa) sit in the north-central portion of the 1.3 million-square-mile South China Sea. 

They are also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan, but have been occupied by China since 1974, when Chinese troops ousted a South Vietnamese garrison.
The past several years have seen Beijing substantially upgrade its facilities on the islands, deploying surface-to-air missiles, building 20 hangars at the airfield, upgrading two harbors and performing substantial land reclamation, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.
Woody Island has served as a blueprint for Beijing's more prominent island-building efforts in the Spratly chain to the south, AMTI said in a 2017 report.
The appearance of the J-10s on Woody Island comes just over a year after China sent its H-6K long-range bombers to the island for test flights for the first time.
The PLA claimed that mission was a part of China's aim to achieve a broader regional reach, quicker mobilization, and greater strike capabilities.
A military expert, Wang Mingliang, was quoted in a Chinese statement as saying the training would hone the Chinese air force's war-preparation skills and its ability to respond to various security threats in the region.
In 2017, a report in China's state-run Global Times, said fighter jets -- J-11s -- were deployed to Woody Island for the first time, with the new hangars able to protect the warplanes from the island's high heat and humidity.
That report said such hangars would be useful on other Chinese islands to greatly enhance Beijing's control over the South China Sea.

Would China's South China Sea Bases Be Wiped Out In A War?

A top naval expert gives us his take.

by Robert Farley

The islands of the SCS have some military relevance, but are more important as a political claim to waterways and undersea resources. 

Militarily, they represent a thin crust on China’s A2/AD system. 

Under certain conditions this crust could disrupt U.S. freedom of action, but it won’t be hard for the United States’ Air Force and Navy to punch through.
China has built some islands in the South China Sea. 

Can it protect them?
During World War II Japan found that control of islands offered some strategic advantages, but not enough to force the United States to reduce each island individually. 

Moreover, over time the islands became a strategic liability, as Japan struggled to keep them supplied with food, fuel and equipment. 

The islands of the SCS are conveniently located for China, but do they really represent an asset to China’s military? 

The answer is yes, but in an actual conflict the value would dwindle quickly.

The Installations
China has established numerous military installations in the South China Sea, primarily in the Spratly and Paracel Islands. 

In the Spratlys, China has built airfields at Subi, Mischief and Fiery Cross, along with potential missile, radar and helicopter infrastructure at several smaller formations. 

In the Paracels, China has established a significant military installation at Woody Island, as well as radar and helicopter facilities in several other areas. 

China continues construction across the region, meaning that it may expand its military presence in the future. 

The larger bases (Subi, Mischief, Fiery Cross and Woody Island) have infrastructure necessary for the management of military aircraft, including fighters and large patrol craft. 

These missiles, radars and aircraft extend the lethal reach of China’s military across the breadth of the South China Sea.

Missiles
Several of the islands serve as bases for SAM systems (including the HQ-9, with a range of 125 miles, and perhaps eventually the Russian S-400) and ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs). These missiles serve to make the South China Sea lethal for U.S. ships and aircraft that do not have stealth capabilities, or that do not enjoy a layered air-defense system. 

The SAM installations, buoyed by networks of radars, can effectively limit the ability of enemy aircraft to enter their lethal zone without significant electronic-warfare assistance. 

The GLCMs can add another set of launchers to China’s A2/AD network, although not necessarily with any greater effectiveness than missiles launched from subs, ships or aircraft.
But it is an open question how survivable the missile installations would be in a conflict. 

Land-based missiles survive air attack because they can hide among hills, forests and other natural cover. 

There is no effective natural cover on the islands that China has created, and even man-made defensive installations may not survive concerted attack. 

Moreover, missile launchers depend upon an at least somewhat robust logistical network for fuel, power and munitions, which China may not be able to reliably provide during a shooting war.

Airfields
The four largest military installations in the SCS have extensive facilities for the operation of military aircraft. 

This includes advanced fighters, but more importantly patrol, electronic-warfare and advanced early-warning aircraft. 

The ability to use these airfields effectively extends the reach of China’s A2/AD bubble, enabling the transmission of targeting data to missile launchers at sea and in mainland China. 

The fighter aircraft themselves serve to make the skies over the SCS even more lethal than they otherwise would be, as well as threaten U.S. ships at a distance with cruise missiles.
But in conflict, the durability of an airfield depends on the availability of materials and equipment to execute repairs after an attack. 

It is not obvious that the islands China has created in the South China Sea will be robust enough to continue in operation after U.S. missile and bomb attacks. 

Although the larger islands have aircraft shelters, it is an open question whether these shelters could long survive a concerted U.S. attack.

Radars
SAMs, GLCMs and combat aircraft depend on accurate targeting data for effectiveness. 

The most important contribution that the SCS islands may offer to the Chinese military is through the radar installations that China has established on many of the islands. 

These installations, while individually vulnerable, help to provide a much fuller picture of the battle space than China would otherwise enjoy. 

Together, they significantly enhance the lethality of China’s defensive networks.
That said, the radars themselves are vulnerable to a wide array of U.S. attacks. 

These include kinetic methods such as missiles (launched from submarines, stealth aircraft or other platforms), electronic warfare, cyberattacks and even special-forces raids. 

In a conflict, China could quickly lose access to the radar network that it has established. 

Still, the network offers a relatively low-cost way of complicating the job that the U.S. military faces in penetrating the SCS.

Logistics
All the military capabilities of China’s SCS islands depend upon secure communications with mainland China. 

Most of the islands constructed by China cannot support extensive logistics stockpiles, or keep those stockpiles safe from attack. 

In a shooting war, the need to keep the islands supplied with fuel, equipment and munitions would quickly become a liability for presumably hard-stretched Chinese transport assets. 

Assuming that the PLAN and PLAAF would have little interest in pursuing risky, expensive efforts at resupplying islands under fire, the military value of the islands of the SCS would be a wasting asset during a conflict. 

Unfortunately for China, the very nature of island warfare, and the nature of the specific formations that China has determined to support, make it difficult to keep installations in service in anything but the very short term.

Ships vs. Forts
As Lord Horatio Nelson may have quipped, “a ship’s a fool to fight a fort.” 

But there are situations in which ships have a major advantage over forts. 

China’s islands in the SCS are not mobile, and are not large enough to hide much in the way of military equipment and material. 

The United States will be able to meticulously map the military installations on each of the islands in the SCS, and will probably be able to track shipments of military equipment to the islands. 

This will make the islands extremely vulnerable to attack from ships, subs and aircraft, as missiles will not require real-time targeting data.
One positive step for the United States would be to reverse the decision to “retire in place” the Advanced Gun System on the Zumwalt-class destroyer. 

Making available a munition for this gun would enable the Zumwalts to strike Chinese island installations at range, potentially causing serious, practically irreparable damage at a relatively low cost. 

Otherwise, the islands will suck up cruise missiles that might effectively be used on more juicy targets.
The islands of the SCS have some military relevance, but are more important as a political claim to waterways and undersea resources. 

Militarily, they represent a thin crust on China’s A2/AD system. 

Under certain conditions this crust could disrupt U.S. freedom of action, but it won’t be hard for the United States’ Air Force and Navy to punch through.

Chinese Satellite

Vietnam’s Communist Party Ousts Historian Who Criticized Its China Policy

By Mike Ives

The historian Tran Duc Anh Son said that Vietnam has irrefutable claims to islands in the South China Sea that China claims as its own.

A prominent Vietnamese historian who criticized his government for not doing more to challenge Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea has been ousted from Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party over comments he made on Facebook.
The political purge of Tran Duc Anh Son, an expert on Vietnam’s claims in the South China Sea, is a rare window into how the party handles dissent among its rank-and-file members.
It may also underline the sensitivities around Vietnam’s handling of its relationship with China, its largest trading partner and former imperial occupier.
Vietnam’s state-run news media reported last week that Dr. Son, who is in his early 50s and worked for years at a state-run research institute in the central city of Danang, was expelled for posting "false" information and violating a code that governs party members’ behavior.
“I knew this day would come,” Dr. Son said in an interview over a messaging service.
He closed his Facebook account this week, saying he needed more time to work on book projects and transition to a new job as the director of a publishing house.
Dr. Son said the Facebook comment that got him in the most trouble was a short question he posed last September under a cartoon that obliquely criticized the government.
A character in the cartoon said: “Seventy-three years ago they corralled people to a rally to listen to the Declaration of Independence. Seventy-three years later they forbid people to gather to celebrate Independence Day.”
That was an apparent reference to a famous 1945 speech by Ho Chi Minh in which the Vietnamese dictator declared his country’s independence from France, and an oblique criticism of the Communist Party’s current leaders, who have escalated repression of political dissidents.
Dr. Son said the question he wrote underneath the cartoon — “Is this true?” — prompted a monthslong investigation by Danang’s Communist Party Central Committee.
He said he was also investigated for a Facebook comment — “How have things become this bad?” — that he left under a post featuring two articles in the state-run news media about the country’s education minister.
Even though many Vietnamese have low opinions of the Communist Party, its members generally avoid criticizing it for fear of repercussions that would affect their livelihoods, said Mai Thanh Son, a senior researcher at the state-affiliated Institute of Social Sciences in central Vietnam.
“The expulsion of Tran Duc Anh Son is a thoughtless decision,” he said.
“It’s like releasing a tiger into the forest, and it contributes to stripping away the cowardly face of the ruling apparatus that the party represents.”
In January, a cybersecurity law took effect in Vietnam that requires technology companies with users there to set up offices and store data in the country, and disclose user data to the authorities without a court order.
Vietnam’s new cybersecurity law was meant to let the government better surveil its critics on Facebook, the country’s most popular social media platform.
Facebook declined to comment on the record about Dr. Son’s account.
The Foreign Ministry did not respond to emailed questions about Dr. Son’s expulsion from the party, including whether his criticism of Vietnam’s South China Sea policies had played a role.
Vietnam has clashed repeatedly at sea with China, which claims most of the waterway as its own. Notably, in 2014 a state-owned Chinese oil company towed an oil rig to waters near Danang, provoking a tense maritime standoff and anti-Chinese riots at several Vietnamese industrial parks. The Communist Party fears a repeat of such anti-China-fueled Vietnamese nationalism, because critics question why the government does not take a harder line against Beijing.
Chinese officials and scholars seek to justify Beijing’s claim to sovereignty over South China Sea waters that encircle the disputed Paracel and Spratly archipelagos by citing maps and other evidence from the 1940s and ’50s.
But Dr. Son and other Vietnamese historians argue that the Nguyen dynasty, which ruled present-day Vietnam from 1802 to 1945, wielded clear administrative control over the Paracels, decades before post-revolutionary China showed any interest in them.
Dr. Son is a former director of a fine arts museum in Hue, Vietnam’s imperial capital, and a specialist in Nguyen-era porcelain.
He developed an interest in Vietnam’s territorial claims as a student poking around archives of old maps and documents.
In 2009, officials in Danang asked him to pursue his research on Vietnam’s maritime claims on the government’s behalf.
He subsequently spent years traveling the world in search of material, including as a Fulbright scholar at Yale University.
Dr. Son has said the historical evidence of Vietnam’s maritime claims is so irrefutable that the government should mount a legal challenge to China’s activities in waters around some of the sea’s disputed islands, as the Philippines successfully did in a case that ended in 2016.
“I’m always against the Chinese,” he told The New York Times during an interview in 2017.
But he said at the time that Vietnam’s top leaders were “slaves” to Beijing who preferred to keep the old maps and other documents hidden.
“They always say to me, ‘Mr. Son, please keep calm,’” he said.
“‘Don’t talk badly about China.’”
The city of Danang, where Dr. Son lives and works, once had a reputation for its powerful, family-based networks that were willing to ignore dictates from the central government, said Bill Hayton, an author of books about Vietnam and the South China Sea and an associate fellow at Chatham House, a research institute based in London.
But Mr. Hayton noted that Vietnam’s current leadership, led by the Communist Party’s general secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong, has lately disciplined some key Danang political figures, including firing Nguyen Xuan Anh, the head of the city’s Communist Party Central Committee.
Even though Danang officials presumably supported and financed Dr. Son’s research, he added, “the current Vietnamese leadership does not want to rock the boat with Beijing and seems determined to keep a lid on criticism of China’s actions in the South China Sea.”

Chinese Aggressions

China builds new platform on reef in South China Sea, satellite photos show
By Travis Fedschun 

China has constructed a new platform at a remote part of the disputed South China Sea that could be used for military purposes, according to satellite images reviewed by a U.S. think tank on Tuesday.
The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative of Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies said the "modest new structure" appears to be anchored on Bombay Reef, and is topped by solar panels and a radome. 

A radome is an enclosure that protects radar equipment.
"The development drew attention given Bombay Reef’s strategic location, and the possibility that the structure’s rapid deployment could be repeated in other parts of the South China Sea," the group said in its report.

The new structure on Bombay Reef has been spotted in satellite photos. (CSIS/AMTI)
Bombay Reef, a remote, undeveloped outcropping, is located on the southeastern edge of the Chinese-controlled Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. 

Vietnam also claims the reef, which already has a lighthouse to serve as an aid to navigation. 

The new platform first appeared at the reef in satellite imagery dated July 7, 2018, and was not present in earlier shots from April.
Unlike China's large man-made islands created by piling sand on top of coral reefs, installing the modestly-sized Bombay Reef platform did not mean inflicting major environmental damage, CSIS said. 

The installation, however, shows how easily China could expand its footprint to other features such as Scarborough Shoal, which it seized from the Philippines in 2012, it added.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative of Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies said it's likely the purpose of the platform is "military in nature." (CSIS/AMTI)

"The more likely possibilities, given Bombay Reef’s strategic location, are military in nature," the group said in its report. 

"The reef is directly adjacent to the major shipping lanes that run between the Paracels and the Spratly Islands to the south, making it an attractive location for a sensor array to extend Chinese radar or signals intelligence collection over that important sea lane."

On Wednesday, the USS Ronald Reagan docked in Hong Kong days after a pair of American B-52 bombers flew over the disputed South China Sea. 

The recent tensions come ahead of a planned meeting later this month between President Trump and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping.
In late September, a Chinese destroyer came close to the USS Decatur in the South China Sea in what the U.S. Navy called an "unsafe and unprofessional maneuver."

Sina Delenda Est

Royal Navy warship confronted by Chinese military in South China Sea
By Chris Graham

HMS Albion passed by the Paracel Islands in recent days to challenge Beijing's excessive claims

A Royal Navy warship has sailed close to islands claimed by Beijing in the South China Sea, a move denounced by China as a "provocation".
In a sign of Britain increasingly flexing its military muscle in the region, HMS Albion last week passed by the Paracel Islands, where it was confronted by the Chinese military.
The Albion, a 22,000 ton amphibious warship carrying a contingent of Royal Marines, was on its way to Saigon, where it docked on Monday after a deployment in and around Japan.
Beijing dispatched a frigate and two helicopters to challenge the British vessel, but both sides remained calm during the encounter, a source told Reuters.
China said Britain was engaged in "provocation" and that it had lodged a strong complaint. 

In a statement to Reuters, the Foreign Ministry said the ship had entered Chinese territorial waters around the Paracel Islands on August 31 without permission, and the Chinese navy had warned them to leave.
A source told Reuters that the Albion did not enter the territorial seas around any features in the hotly disputed region but demonstrated that Britain does not recognise excessive maritime claims around the Paracel Islands. 

Twelve nautical miles is an internationally recognised territorial limit.
The Paracels are occupied entirely by China but also claimed by Vietnam.
A spokesman for the Royal Navy said: “HMS Albion exercised her rights for freedom of navigation in full compliance with international law and norms.”
Dr Euan Graham, a Senior Fellow at the Lowy Institute in Australia, said the move followed an earlier passage by a Royal Navy ship through the Spratly Islands.
He said it was a clear indication of Britain's support for the US, which has said it would like to see more international participation in such actions.
"Also, the fact that Albion was coming from Japan and on her way to Vietnam gives the signal a sharper edge to China," he told The Telegraph.
The Albion is one of three Royal Navy ships deployed to Asia this year, along with HMS Argyll and HMS Sutherland.
"The UK has impressively deployed three Royal Navy surface ships to Asian waters this year, after a long gap between ship visits, to this part of the world," he added. 

Military vehicles are seen in the loading dock of the HMS Albion, the British Royal Navy flagship amphibious assault ship, after the ship's arrival at Harumi Pier in Tokyo.

Gavin Williamson, the Defence Secretary, said in June that deployment of the three ships was intended to send the “strongest of signals” on the importance of freedom of navigation.
Dr Graham said "the bigger test of UK commitment to regional security in the Indo-Pacific is about the consistency of its military presence into the future".
"The Royal Navy is making encouraging noises about sending assets to participate in FPDA (the Five Power Defence Arrangement) exercises as well as forward basing in future."
The FPDA is a regional security institution between Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
China’s claims in the South China Sea, through which some $3 trillion of shipborne trade passes each year, are contested by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Both Britain and the United States say they conduct FONOP operations throughout the world, including in areas claimed by allies.
The British Navy has previously sailed close to the disputed Spratly Islands, further south in the South China Sea, several times in recent years but not within the 12 nautical mile limit, regional diplomatic sources have said.
FONOPs, which are largely symbolic, have so far not persuaded Beijing to curtail its South China Sea activities, which have included extensive reclamation of reefs and islands and the construction of runways, hangars and missile systems.

Foreign aircraft and vessels in the region are routinely challenged by Chinese naval ships and monitoring stations on the fortified islands, sources have said previously.
In April, warships from Australia -- which like Britain is a close US ally -- had what Canberra described as a close "encounter" with Chinese naval vessels in the contested sea.

Exposed: Pentagon Report Spotlights China’s Maritime Militia

For countering China’s shadowy Third Sea Force—the Maritime Militia—sunlight is the best disinfectant and demonstrated awareness is an important element of deterrence. This year’s Department of Defense report to Congress offers both.

By Andrew S. Erickson


Finally, some good news from Washington! 

Last Thursday the Pentagon released its annual report to Congress on military and security developments involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC). 

The single most important revelation alone justifies the 145-page report’s $108,000 cost many times over. 

Even more than when last year’s report mentioned it for the first time, the U.S. government has officially deployed the formidable credibility of the world’s foremost intelligence collection and analytical capabilities to shine a spotlight and expose the shadowy People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM). 

Previously, in beltway bureaucracy, the PAFMM was mentioned by Ronald O’Rourke in his Congressional Research Service report and by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which rightly recommended that the Department of Defense address this vital subject. 

Indeed, there is no substitute for the Pentagon’s credibility in this regard. 

By releasing these important facts officially and authoritatively, the 2018 report has performed a signal service.
Beijing uses the PAFMM to advance its disputed sovereignty claims across the South and East China Seas. 

The Maritime Militia, China’s third sea force, often operates in concert with China’s first sea force (the Navy) and second sea force (the Coast Guard). 

In an unprecedented accompanying Fact Sheet, the Pentagon’s 2018 report offers a recent example: “China is willing to employ coercive measures to advance its interests and mitigate other countries’ opposition... In August 2017, China conducted a coordinated PLA Navy (PLAN), China Coast Guard (CCG), and People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia patrol around Thitu Island and planted a flag on Sandy Cay, a sandbar within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef and Thitu Island, possibly in response to the Philippines’ reported plans to upgrade its runway on Thitu Island.”
Each PRC sea service is the maritime division of one of China’s three armed services, and each is the world’s largest by number of ships. 

“The PLAN, CCG, and People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) form the largest maritime force in the Indo-Pacific,” the report emphasizes. 

First, “The PLAN is the region’s largest navy, with more than 300 surface combatants, submarines, amphibious ships, patrol craft, and specialized types.” 

It is also the world’s largest navy numerically; as of August 17, 2018, the U.S. Navy has 282 deployable battle-force ships. 

Second, “Since 2010, the CCG’s fleet of large patrol ships (more than 1,000 tons) has more than doubled from approximately 60 to more than 130 ships,” the report adds, “making it by far the largest coast guard force in the world and increasing its capacity to conduct simultaneous, extended offshore operations in multiple disputed areas.” 

Third, Beijing has what is clearly the world’s largest and most capable maritime militia. 

One of the few maritime militia forces in existence today at all, it is virtually the only one charged with involvement in sovereignty disputes. 

Only Vietnam, one of the very last countries politically and bureaucratically similar to China, is known to have a roughly equivalent force with a roughly equivalent mission. 

Moreover, when it comes to forces at sea—militia or otherwise—Hanoi is simply not in the same league as Beijing and cannot compete either quantitatively or qualitatively.
Beijing’s use of the PAFMM undermines vital American and international interests in maintaining the regional status quo, including the rules and norms on which peace and prosperity depend. 

PAFMM forces engage in gray zone operations, at a level specifically designed to frustrate effective response by the other parties involved. 

One PRC source terms this PAFMM participation in “low-intensity maritime rights protection struggles”; the Pentagon’s report describes broader PAFMM and CCG “use of low-intensity coercion in maritime disputes.” 

“During periods of tension, official statements and state media seek to portray China as reactive,” the report explains. 

“China uses an opportunistically timed progression of incremental but intensifying steps to attempt to increase effective control over disputed areas and avoid escalation to military conflict.” 

In particular, “PAFMM units enable low-intensity coercion activities to advance territorial and maritime claims.” 

Because the PAFMM is virtually unique and tries to operate deceptively under the radar, it has remained publicly obscure for far too long even as it trolls with surprising success for advances in sovereignty disputes in seas along China’s contested periphery.
Fortunately, the U.S. government is well aware of the PAFMM’s predations and monitors it closely. In providing such detailed coverage of the PAFMM in its latest report, the Pentagon has strongly validated key findings from the Naval War College China Maritime Studies Institute’s (CMSI) open source research project on that subject, which is now entering its fifth year. 

In what follows, I share CMSI’s conclusions and the related text in the report.
A component of the People’s Armed Forces, China’s PAFMM operates under a direct military chain of command to conduct state-sponsored activities. 

The PAFMM is locally supported, but answers to the very top of China’s military bureaucracy: Commander-in-Chief Xi Jinping himself.
Part-time PAFMM units incorporate marine industry workers (e.g., fishermen) directly into China’s armed forces. 

As the Pentagon explains, “The PAFMM is a subset of China’s national militia, an armed reserve force of civilians available for mobilization... Militia units organize around towns, villages, urban sub-districts, and enterprises, and vary widely in composition and mission.” 

While retaining day jobs, personnel (together with their ships) that meet the standards for induction into the PAFMM are organized and trained within the militia—as well as, in many cases, by China’s Navy—and activated on demand. 

As part of such efforts, “A large number of PAFMM vessels train with and assist the PLAN and CCG in tasks such as safeguarding maritime claims, surveillance and reconnaissance, fishery protection, logistics support, and search and rescue.” 

To further support and encourage PAFMM efforts, “The government subsidizes various local and provincial commercial organizations to operate militia vessels to perform ‘official’ missions on an ad hoc basis outside of their regular civilian commercial activities.”
Since 2015, starting in Sansha City in the Paracel Islands, China has been developing a new full-time PAFMM contingent: more professionalized, militarized, well-paid units including military recruits, crewing purpose-built vessels with mast-mounted water cannons for spraying and reinforced hulls for ramming. 

“In the past, the PAFMM rented fishing vessels from companies or individual fishermen, but China has built a state-owned fishing fleet for at least part of its maritime militia force in the South China Sea,” the Pentagon expounds. 

“The Hainan provincial government, adjacent to the South China Sea”—whose important role in PAFMM development my colleague Conor M. Kennedy and I explain here, here, and here—“ordered the building of 84 large militia fishing vessels with reinforced hulls and ammunition storage, which the militia received by the end of 2016, along with extensive subsidies to encourage frequent operations in the Spratly Islands.” 

The report elaborates: “This particular PAFMM unit is also China’s most professional, paid salaries independent of any clear commercial fishing responsibilities, and recruited from recently separated veterans.” 

Lacking fishing responsibilities, personnel train for peacetime and wartime contingencies, including with light arms, and deploy regularly to disputed South China Sea features even during fishing moratoriums.

In July, the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence issued the China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), Coast Guard, and Government Maritime Forces 2018 Recognition and Identification Guide. The excerpt above shows three different types of purpose-built PAFMM vessels operated by the Sansha City Maritime Militia.
PAFMM units have participated in manifold international sea incidents. 

As the Pentagon attests, “The militia has played significant roles in a number of military campaigns and coercive incidents over the years, including the 2009 harassment of the USNS Impeccable conducting normal operations, the 2012 Scarborough Reef standoff, the 2014 Haiyang Shiyou-981 oil-rig standoff, and a large surge of ships in waters near the Senkakus in 2016.”
The last of these is particularly significant, since it is now one of several publicly documented examples of PAFMM involvement in international incidents in the East China Sea, but had not been conclusively confirmed by previously known open sources. 

Other examples, as documented in CMSI research to date, include swarming into the Senkaku Islands’ territorial sea in 1978 and harassment of USNS Howard O. Lorenzen in 2014. 

So, while the vast majority of publicly revealed incidents involving PAFMM forces have occurred throughout the South China Sea, the PAFMM also clearly operates and has been empowered to engage in provocative activities in the East China Sea as well. 

Any PRC attempts to deny that the PAFMM operates in the East China Sea, including in disruptively close proximity to foreign forces, may therefore be easily disproven. 

The Pentagon is clear: “The PAFMM is active in the South and East China Seas.”
This conclusive exposure of PAFMM activities in the East China Sea should be an important reminder to policy-makers in Tokyo and Washington alike that Beijing is certain to continue to wield its third sea force as a tool of choice to probe and apply pressure vis-à-vis Japan's Senkaku Islands. 

These pinnacle-shaped features are the peak Sino-Japanese geographical flashpoint. 

As the current and previous U.S. administrations have affirmed explicitly, the Senkakus are covered under Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, which states, in part: “Each Party recognizes that an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the administration of Japan would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional provisions and processes.”
American and Japanese analysts and decision-makers should therefore redouble their efforts to share information and develop and implement potential countermeasures concerning the PAFMM. 

Here, as elsewhere, sunlight is the best disinfectant and demonstrated awareness is an important element of deterrence. 

Just as the Pentagon’s 2017 report was the first iteration to mention the PAFMM and this latest 2018 edition builds strongly on that foundation, it is to be hoped that the Japan Ministry of Defense’s Defense of Japan 2017 report—which likewise mentioned the PAFMM for the first time, albeit without explicit in-text reference to the East China Sea—will be followed with a 2018 edition offering far more robust PAFMM coverage, including detailed consideration of extant and potential future activities in the East China Sea.
As mentioned above, the Pentagon’s latest report also stresses PAFMM involvement in the layered cabbage-style envelopment of the Philippines-claimed Sandy Cay shoal near Thitu Island in the South China Sea, although it does not mention the fact—confirmed by commercially available AIS data concerning ship movements—that China has sustained a presence of at least two PAFMM vessels around Sandy Cay since August 2017. 

As the Pentagon emphasizes, the “PLAN, CCG, and PAFMM sometimes conduct coordinated patrols.” 

Inter-service cooperation applies in peace and war: “In conflict, China may employ China Coast Guard and People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia ships to support military operations.”
“In the South China Sea,” the report emphasizes, “the PAFMM plays a major role in coercive activities to achieve China’s political goals without fighting, part of broader PRC military doctrine stating confrontational operations short of war can be an effective means of accomplishing political objectives.” 

Other CMSI-documented examples of international incidents involving the PAFMM there that the report does not mention explicitly include direct participation in China’s 1974 seizure of the Western Paracel Islands from Vietnam; involvement in the occupation and development of Mischief Reef resulting in a 1995 incident with the Philippines; harassment of various Vietnamese government/survey vessels, including the Binh Minh and Viking; participation in the 2014 blockade of Second Thomas Shoal; and engagement in the 2015 maneuvers around USS Lassen.
In conclusion, the Pentagon deserves great credit for employing the full force of its tremendous analytical capabilities and official authority to shine a bright, inescapable spotlight on the PAFMM’s true nature and activities. 

There is no plausible deniability: the PAFMM is a state-organized, -developed, and -controlled force operating under a direct military chain of command to conduct PRC state-sponsored activities. 

Publicly revealing the PAFMM’s true nature and activities is an important step in deterring its future use. 

But far more is needed to counter the pernicious challenge of Beijing’s shadowy but fully knowable third sea force. 

As the Pentagon’s valuable new report emphasizes, “China continues to exercise low-intensity coercion to advance its claims in the East and South China Seas.”

Sina Delenda Est

US will continue to confront China over disputed islands, Mattis says
By Lukas Mikelionis

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis lands in Kabul on March 13, 2018 on an unannounced trip to Afghanistan. 

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday that the U.S. will continue to confront China’s increasing militarization of islands in the South China Sea -- despite the U.S. angering Beijing over the weekend by sending two Navy ships to the region.
Mattis rebuked China and said the country hasn’t abided by its promise to stop militarization of the Spratly Islands, a disputed territory whose ownership is contested by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Mattis said U.S. ships are maintaining a "steady drumbeat" of naval operations and will confront “what we believe is out of step with international law."
“You’ll notice there is only one country that seems to take active steps to rebuff them or state their resentment [to] them, but it’s international waters and a lot of nations want to see freedom of navigation,” Mattis told reporters while enroute to Hawaii.

His comments came after the two U.S. warships sailed close to the Paracel Islands, north of the Spratlys, promoting an angry response from China, which claims to have sent ships and aircraft to counter the U.S. Navy’s presence in the area.
The U.S. operation on Sunday was planned in advance, but similar military exercises have become routine amid China’s increasing militarization of the islands.
Officials at the Pentagon have long criticized China’s actions in the disputed islands, claiming the Chinese government has not been open about its military build-up and has been using the islands to gather intelligence, Reuters reported.

China deployed truck-mounted surface-to-air missiles or anti-ship cruise missiles at Woody Island, according to recent satellite photos. 

Earlier this month, China also landed bombers in the islands.
“When they (Chinese) do things that are opaque to the rest of us, then we cannot cooperate in areas that we would otherwise cooperate in,” Mattis told reporters, adding that American diplomats were working on the issue and heard concerns about Chinese actions not just from the U.S. government but other regional allies as well.
He is expected to raise the issue with Chinese officials during a security forum in Singapore later this week.

Chinese Aggressions

U.S. warships sail near South China Sea islands claimed by Beijing
By Idrees Ali


WASHINGTON -- Two U.S. Navy warships sailed near South China Sea islands claimed by China on Sunday, two U.S. officials told Reuters, in a move that drew condemnation from Beijing as Donald Trump seeks its continued cooperation on North Korea.
The operation was the latest attempt to counter Beijing’s efforts to limit freedom of navigation in the strategic waters.
While this operation had been planned months in advance, and similar operations have become routine, it comes at a particularly sensitive time and just days after the Pentagon uninvited China from a major U.S.-hosted naval drill.
The U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Higgins guided-missile destroyer and the Antietam, a guided-missile cruiser, came within 12 nautical miles of the Paracel Islands, among a string of islets, reefs and shoals over which China has territorial disputes with its neighbors.
The U.S. military vessels carried out maneuvering operations near Tree, Lincoln, Triton and Woody islands in the Paracels, one of the officials said.
Trump’s cancellation of a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has put further strain on U.S.-China ties amid a trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.
Critics of the operations, known as a “freedom of navigation,” have said that they have little impact on Chinese behavior and are largely symbolic.
The U.S. military has a long-standing position that its operations are carried out throughout the world, including in areas claimed by allies, and that they are separate from political considerations.
Satellite photographs taken on May 12 showed China appeared to have deployed truck-mounted surface-to-air missiles or anti-ship cruise missiles at Woody Island.
Earlier this month, China’s air force landed bombers on disputed islands and reefs in the South China Sea as part of a training exercise in the region, triggering concern from Vietnam and the Philippines.
The U.S. military did not directly comment on Sunday’s operation, but said U.S. forces operate in the region daily.
“We conduct routine and regular Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs), as we have done in the past and will continue to do in the future,” U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a statement.
China’s Defense Ministry expressed its anger, saying it had sent ships and aircraft to warn the U.S. warships to leave, saying they had entered the country’s territorial waters without permission.
The move “contravened Chinese and relevant international law, seriously infringed upon Chinese sovereignty (and) harmed strategic mutual trust between the two militaries,” it said.
In a separate statement, China’s Foreign Ministry urged the United States to stop such actions.
“China will continue to take all necessary measures to defend the country’s sovereignty and security,” it added, without elaborating.

Triton island

CONTESTED SEA
Pentagon officials have long complained that China has not been candid enough about its rapid military build-up and using South China Sea islands to gather intelligence in the region.

Satellite photo dated March 28, 2018 shows Woody Island. 

In March, a U.S. Navy destroyer carried out a “freedom of navigation” operation close to Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands.
Chinese officials have accused Washington of viewing their country in suspicious, “Cold War” terms.
China’s claims in the South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion in shipborne trade passes each year, are contested by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
The United States has said it would like to see more international participation in freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea.

Chinese Aggressions

Pentagon disinvites China from major naval exercise over South China Sea buildup
By Missy Ryan

This May 19 video still from China's CCTV shows a Chinese H-6K bomber aircraft is seen flying along a runway in the South China Sea. The Chinese air force landed long-range bombers for the first time at an airport, a move that has further fueled concerns about Beijing's expansive claims over the disputed region. 

The Pentagon disinvited China from participating in a major naval exercise on Wednesday, signaling mounting U.S. anger over Beijing’s expanded military footprint in disputed areas of the South China Sea.
A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Christopher Logan, said the Defense Department had reversed an earlier invitation to the Chinese Navy to the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), a biennual naval exercise that includes more than two dozen nations, over its decision to place anti-ship missiles, surface-to-air missiles, and electronic jammers in the contested Spratly Islands. 

China has also landed bomber aircraft at Woody Island, farther to the north in the disputed Paracel Islands, the Pentagon said.
“While China has maintained that the construction of the islands is to ensure safety at sea, navigation assistance, search and rescue, fisheries protection, and other non-military functions, the placement of these weapon systems is only for military use,” Logan said in a statement.
While the Trump administration does not assert a U.S. claim to the islands and smaller features, it has challenged Chinese claims of sovereignty over virtually all the South China Sea, which U.S. allies in the region see as key to their economic interests and security.
Chinese officials were notified about its exlcusion from RIMPAC, which last about a month, on Wednesday morning, a Pentagon official said. 

Beijing began participating in the exercise in 2014. 

There was no immediate public response from the Chinese government.
Logan described China’s activities as a “violation of the promise that Xi Jinping made to the United States and the world.”
“We have called on China to remove the military systems immediately and to reverse course on the militarization of disputed South China Sea features,” Logan said.

As Trump Focuses on Korea, Beijing Flaunts Its Takeover of South China Sea

China lands a strategic bomber in disputed territory, gauging how America will react at a time when Beijing appears to be outmaneuvering Washington on several fronts.
By BRENDON HONG

HONG KONG—Over the weekend, the Chinese military landed a bomber on Woody Island in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, where Beijing has a slew of construction projects on unpopulated atolls and rocks it claims as part of its territory.
Beijing is leveraging its position as a broker for a deal between Donald Trump’s administration and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, figuring that despite the obvious provocation, Trump will just have to suck it up. 

At the same time, the Chinese Communist Party is issuing new reminders to its neighbors, reminding them who’s the real boss in this part of the world, just in case they didn’t get the point from the war games held in April.
So, one of Beijing’s bombers touches down on Woody. 

Was there ever any doubt such a thing would happen?
China’s air force had previously landed its fighter jets in the area, but the plane in question this time is the Xi'an H-6K bomber, a nuclear-capable strategic aircraft known as China’s B-52. 

The People’s Liberation Army Air Force says its engineers have extended the original aircraft’s flight range. 

Depending on the payload, the bomber can travel between 3,000 km (1,900 miles) and 6,000 km (3,700 miles) without aerial refueling. 

With refueling, its range increases to 14,000 kilometers (8,700 miles). 

They’ve extended its visibility range, and made its strikes more accurate.

Chinese bombers including the H-6K conduct takeoff and landing training on an island reef at a southern sea area

From Woody Island, the H-6K can easily reach all of China’s neighbors. 

Taiwan and Vietnam have also made claims of sovereignty over Woody and its surrounding waters, and Woody is less than 1,000 kilometers from Manila, which disputes some of China’s other claims in the waters of the South China Sea.
The Chinese defense ministry has stated that the landing was part of a military exercise that involved simulated air-to-sea strikes, in preparation for “the battle for the South China Sea”—which may be just as ominous as it sounds. 

Analysts say the main function of the H-6K would likely be to hunt and kill enemy ships in the vast Pacific using its payload of supersonic missiles.
China’s claim over the South China Sea is a constant source of consternation within the region. 

The Philippines even brought a case against the People’s Republic to The Hague. 

The tribunal ruled in July 2016 that China had no “historical rights” to the disputed territory, but before the end of that year, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who was once the most outspoken among the South China Sea claimants, said that he would “set aside” the ruling and “not impose anything on China.” 

When Trump offered to mediate the conflict last year, Duterte said that the matter is “better left untouched,” allowing Beijing to continue its construction of military installations and performance of military drills with no substantial opposition.
After the H-6K bomber’s touchdown, Duterte again said that he would not do anything to push the buttons of Beijing: “You know they have the planes... And with their hypersonic, they can reach Manila within seven to 10 minutes.”
Though Duterte faces criticism for kowtowing to China’s dictator Xi Jinping, his assessment of the great game in the South China Sea is sound. 

Within East and Southeast Asia, in particular among the nations that claim some part of those waters as their own, there is no nation with the resources to counter China’s encroachment. 

Major powers on other continents have little reason to enter a skirmish with the Chinese military for desolate rocks, despite the significance of the South China Sea for international trade.
As China continues to entrench itself in these waters, U.S. actions and responses have not evolved. 

American warships occasionally sail near the disputed islands, sparking rebukes from Chinese officials. 

After the H-6K landing, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Logan said, “China’s continued militarization of disputed features in the South China Sea only serves to raise tensions and destabilize the region.” 

Washington has said that Beijing would face “consequences” for its actions. 

But these are vague threats at best, and from the Chinese Communist Party’s standpoint, American lip service is business as usual, so the the South China Sea takeover barrels ahead as planned.
On three outposts located on the Spratly Islands, south of Woody and even closer to the Philippines, the Chinese military already has installed anti-ship and surface-to-air missile systems to counter unwanted intrusions.
But why land a bomber in the hotly contested region now?
The move is not so much designed to antagonize those whose claims in the South China Sea have fallen flat. 

Rather, China is gauging how America will react at a time when Beijing appears to be outmaneuvering Washington on several fronts. 

In trade negotiations, the fight for intellectual-property protection seemingly has been abandoned, tariffs that were slapped on Chinese goods have been suspended, the American president has tweeted about saving Chinese jobs, and what Trump’s negotiators call Chinese “concessions” are actions that Beijing intended to take even before trade-war talks.

“American lip service is business as usual, so the the South China Sea takeover barrels ahead as planned.”

More importantly, Trump’s success or failure at the planned summit with Kim Jong Un depends heavily on the guarantees that can be made to Kim by North Korea’s primary sponsor, China. 

Beijing sees itself as holding the upper hand in matters that America is much more heavily invested in, and is using this as cover while it tightens its grip on the South China Sea.
The Chinese Communist Party is flexing its geopolitical muscle westward, too. 

Sri Lanka’s government has already signed away control of one of its major ports to China, using a 99-year lease to knock off a chunk of $8 billion worth of debt to Chinese state-owned corporations. 

Also saddled with massive debt, Burma may eventually have to do the same.
Meanwhile, matters of territorial sovereignty can easily be used to whip up fervent nationalistic sentiment among the Chinese population. 

This month, a group of tourists from China arrived in Vietnam wearing T-shirts showing a map of their homeland, including the nine-dash line that traces the South China Sea and marks it as part of the People’s Republic. 

Vietnamese airport officials asked the visitors to change their attire before letting them enter the country. 

Tasteless as the choice of couture may have been, China is already the victor in those waters.

Iron Lady

Julie Bishop raises objections to China's activities in South China Sea
By Katharine Murphy

Julie Bishop has raised objections to China’s militarisation of the South China Sea after weekend reports that a Chinese bomber capable of carrying a nuclear warhead had been on the disputed Paracel Islands.
With relations between Canberra and Beijing tense, courtesy of the Turnbull government’s pursuit of a crackdown against foreign interference, the Australian foreign minister has held a lengthy meeting with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of the meeting of G20 foreign ministers in Argentina.
Bishop characterised the discussion as “very warm and candid and constructive” and said she would shortly visit the Chinese capital.
She said she had a good long-term relationship with her Chinese counterpart and told the ABC that Australia would “continue to approach our bilateral relationship with goodwill and realism and pragmatism and open communication”.
While the meeting in Argentina was obviously intended to achieve a diplomatic thaw, Bishop confirmed she had raised objections about China’s activities in the South China Sea, including the weekend incident.
The Chinese airforce said several bombers of various types – including the long-range, nuclear strike-capable H-6K – carried out landing and take-off drills at an unidentified island airfield after carrying out simulated strike training on targets at sea.
“Australia’s position has been very clear and consistent and it is very well known to China. Our concern about militarisation of disputed features of the South China Sea has been the subject of a number of discussions, and was again today,” Bishop said on Tuesday.
She said Australia had consistently raised concerns about activities in the disputed territory as part of “enduring, broad dialogue with China, and I don’t believe China was surprised by my raising it again today”.
Bishop also discussed the South China Sea with the US at the G20 meeting. 

She said Australia would continue to exercise its rights to freedom of navigation and overflight “and support the rights of others to do so” – and had conveyed that position to China.

China lands nuclear strike-capable bombers on South China Sea islands
The foreign minister has been criticised over her handling of the Australia-China relationship by a former Australian ambassador to Beijing, Geoff Raby, now a Chinese agent based in China.
Bishop has hit back at the critique from Raby, calling him ill-informed and “profoundly ignorant, might I say, about the level of engagement between Australia and China at present and the state of the relationship”.
In a translated press statement after the G20 talks, the Chinese foreign minister was less upbeat than Bishop. 

He acknowledged China-Australia relations had “encountered some difficulties”.
He also urged Australia to adopt a more positive disposition towards Beijing. 

“If Australia sincerely hopes that the relations between the two countries will return to the right track... they must break away from traditional thinking, take off their coloured glasses, and look at China’s development from a positive angle,” Wang said.