US Navy Destroyer Conducts Freedom of Navigation Operation Near China-Held Island

Just 39 days after a first operation, the Trump administration authorizes a second FONOP in the South China Sea.
By Ankit Panda

On Sunday, a U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, USS Stethem, sailed within 12 nautical miles of a China-occupied island in the South China Sea. 

Specifically, the U.S. Navy destroyer sailed near Triton Island, a China-held island in the disputed Paracel group, also claimed by Vietnam.
Sunday’s operation marks the second freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) by the Trump administration since the late-May operation by USS Dewey near Mischief Reef, which is one of China’s seven artificial islands in the Spratly Group.
According to reports, USS Stethem sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island on Sunday. Though the U.S. Navy has not released any official details regarding what excessive maritime claims the operation sought to challenge, there is precedent for an operation at Triton Island.
The United States previously conducted a FONOP near Triton Island in January 2016, when USS Curtis Wilbur challenged China’s prior notification requirements by conducting an innocent passage around the feature.
The Paracel Islands present a different case from the Spratlys because China has long maintained illegal straight baselines around its features. 

It has additionally occupied the Paracel features since the 1970s.
Beijing’s occupation of features in the Spratlys is more recent and its development of large-scale artificial islands there began in late-2013.
Sunday’s operation will may draw extra scrutiny given a series of other actions taken by the Trump administration in recent days that may be suggestive of a change in approach by the United States to the U.S.-China relations.
As I discussed on Friday, the Trump administration announced a new arms package for Taiwan, slapped a Chinese bank with sanctions for working with North Korea, and had earlier downgraded China’s standing in a human trafficking report released by the U.S. Department of State.
These developments, combined with the unusually short interval of just 39 days between the Dewey operation and the Stethem operation, are suggestive of the United States carrying out the operation to seek leverage over China potentially with regard to North Korea — especially ahead of a scheduled phone call between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping on Sunday evening.
The U.S. Navy’s FON program, however, is a legal signaling tool and not designed to either deter or coerce claimants — in the South China Sea and elsewhere.

In the South China Sea, the U.S. is Struggling to Halt Beijing’s Advance

Despite a belated U.S. naval patrol, Beijing’s bid to extend its military power over the South China Sea is moving ahead unchecked.
BY DAN DE LUCE, KEITH JOHNSON

For the first time since Donald Trump took office, a U.S. warship has sailed near a Chinese-controlled island in the disputed South China Sea, signaling an attempt to project a more assertive American stance against Beijing just before a major regional defense summit.
The mission, a passage by the guided missile destroyer USS Dewey­ on Wednesday within twelve nautical miles of Mischief Reef, in the Spratly island chain, was long anticipated and delayed.
The last such operation took place in October, and U.S. commanders who had already chafed under Barack Obama’s tight leash had hoped to get a freer hand and to carry out more patrols under Trump.
Instead, the new administration has declined several requests from the military to carry out naval patrols in the disputed waterway.
Eager to secure China’s help in pressuring North Korea over its nuclear weapons program, the White House has moved cautiously and chosen not to confront Beijing over the South China Sea, officials and congressional aides told Foreign Policy.
But with defense ministers and senior military officers from across Asia due to meet in Singapore next month, including U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, the administration needed to show it was willing to back up its words with some action and demonstrate that it would uphold the principle of freedom of navigation, experts said.
“This was a good, albeit overdue, move by the Trump Administration,” said Ely Ratner, formerly deputy national security adviser to Joe Biden and now at the Council on Foreign Relations.
It was the first time a U.S. warship had sailed within the twelve-mile limit of any Chinese-held feature — a way to show that Washington doesn’t buy Beijing’s claims that rocks generate a territorial sea, and so push back against China’s expansionist claims. 
“This was the big one folks were waiting for,” he said.
And while those so-called freedom of navigation operations, or FONOPS, by themselves don’t amount to a U.S. strategy to deal with the South China Sea, he said, the first step is to make sure that China can’t unilaterally fence off bits of international waters. 
“FONOPs are an essential part of that,” Ratner said.
During the campaign and early days of the administration, Trump and his deputies staked out a tough line on China.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson suggested in his confirmation hearings that U.S. forces would actually try to expel China from disputed waters and islets it now claims.
But North Korea and its rapidly-expanding missile and nuclear weapons program have grabbed the attention of the Trump administration, pushing the disputes over the Chinese land grab in the South China Sea — and Beijing’s open militarization of many islets and atolls — to the back burner.
Trump has toned down his rhetoric on trade disputes and other spats with China specifically to secure Beijing’s cooperation in defusing the North Korea crisis.
“The president and his advisers have calculated that if we are to get China’s help on North Korea, better to take the foot off the gas on more contentious issues,” said Mira Rapp-Hooper, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
Even though as a candidate Trump portrayed former president Barack Obama as a weak president in his dealings with China and other adversaries, his administration’s cautious diplomacy bears some resemblance to Obama’s policies, as the previous White House concluded that more could be gained from Beijing by avoiding a full-blown confrontation over the South China Sea or other disputes.
Much to the consternation of U.S. allies in Asia, the Trump White House has yet to fill senior positions at the State Department and the Pentagon handling Asia policy, and has said little about the South China Sea issue publicly.
The uncertainty over the administration’s policy on China has alarmed America’s partners and weakened the resolve of some governments in Southeast Asia, who fear Washington will no longer back them up if they try to take on Beijing in the South China Sea.
At a meeting last month in Manila of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, government ministers from the region backed off of references to “land reclamation and militarization” after lobbying from China.
The Pentagon sought to downplay the significance of the operation, which it described as routine. Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, described the passage at an event in Washington Thursday as “not confrontational,” and said that the so-called freedom of navigation operations by U.S. ships receive exaggerated scrutiny for the supposed diplomatic messages they convey.
“They sure get a lot of attention when they happen,” he said, but the operations are routinely conducted all over the world without the fanfare associated with the South China Sea missions.
The operations sure get a lot of attention in China.
And such operations are also closely watched in Washington as a barometer of the administration’s willingness to push back against China. 
Amid growing concern in Congress that the Trump administration is making strategic concessions to China in hopes of persuading Beijing to shift its stance on North Korea, several senators from both sides of the aisle wrote a letter earlier this month urging the administration to show resolve in the South China Sea and conduct more frequent naval patrols in the waterway.
The first real test of the effect of Wednesday’s naval mission will come in early June at the Shangri-La dialogue, a large annual gathering in Singapore that serves as a venue for high-level talks on crucial matters of Asian security.
Many maritime experts view the focus on freedom of navigation operations, and how they are publicly presented, as misplaced.
“In my view, the publicity around the FONOPs is problematic. Many observers now view it as an indicator of U.S. resolve, which it is not,” said M. Taylor Fravel, an expert on Chinese maritime issues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Such missions are merely meant to uphold traditional rights to navigation in international waters for all countries, he said.
What’s more, they can give Beijing an excuse to ramp up its own provocative behavior, feeling as if its claims of sovereignty are being challenged.
“They were never intended to do more, such as deterring China’s broader ambitions in places like the South China Sea.”
Ultimately, and despite the belated U.S. mission near Mischief Reef, Washington has few tools at its disposal to convince China to retreat from its years-long acquisition and garrisoning of a spate of tiny reefs and atolls in the South China Sea, one of the world’s busiest waterways.
Some experts and lawmakers have urged imposing economic sanctions on Chinese companies taking part in the vast island-building project, but the Trump administration has shown no sign it is ready to consider such a move.
Since it began dredging sand from the seafloor to vastly expand the size of those pinpricks of coral in 2014, China has built airfields, deep harbors and air defense systems on many features and deployed advanced fighter jets, despite promises to stop militarizing the area.
The bid to extend its reach in the waterway is part of China’s much broader effort — backed up with an arsenal of missiles — to push out its defensive perimeter from the Chinese coast and keep potential rivals at arm’s length in the event of a conflict.
“The United States does not have great options in the South China Sea,” Fravel said.
“China will not vacate the features it occupies and the United States will not forcibly remove them. “
China’s project has moved at a brisk pace, with reports of new military installations appearing every few weeks.
Earlier this month, a state-run Chinese paper said that Beijing had installed 155 mm rocket launchers on Fiery Cross reef in the Spratlys, purportedly to deter combat divers from Vietnam, which has been at loggerheads with China over territorial claims in the South China Sea.
“They basically succeeded in their construction projects, and are now well on their way to having floating bases out in the Spratly Islands, and there’s been really very little pushback and they’ve had to pay very little cost for doing so,” said Rapp-Hooper.

Chinese Aggressions

U.S. drill designed to reject China's claim around artificial island: officials
By Idrees Ali and David Brunnstrom | WASHINGTON

A U.S. warship carried out a "maneuvering drill" when it sailed within 12 nautical miles of an artificial island built up by China in the South China Sea, to show it was not entitled to a territorial sea around it, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
The operation near Mischief Reef on Thursday, Pacific time, among a string of islets, reefs and shoals over which China has disputes with its neighbors, was the boldest U.S. challenge yet to Chinese island-building in the strategic waterway.
It drew an angry response from China, which Donald Trump has tried to court in recent weeks to persuade it to take a tougher line on North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. 

Analysts say previous U.S. "freedom-of-navigation operations" in the Spratly archipelago involved "innocent passage," in which a warship effectively recognized a territorial sea by crossing it speedily, without stopping.
On Thursday, the destroyer USS Dewey conducted a "man overboard" exercise, specifically to show that its passage within 12 nautical miles was not innocent passage, U.S. officials said.
"USS Dewey engaged in normal operations by conducting a maneuvering drill inside 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef," one official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey prepares for a replenishment-at-sea in the South China Sea May 19, 2017. Picture taken May 19, 2017.

Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey transits the South China Sea May 6, 2017.
Chinese dredging vessels are purportedly seen in the waters around Mischief Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea in this still image from video taken by a P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft provided by the United States Navy May 21, 2015.
An aerial photo taken though a glass window of a Philippine military plane shows the alleged on-going land reclamation by China on Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, west of Palawan, Philippines, May 11, 2015.

"The ship’s actions demonstrated that Mischief Reef is not entitled to its own territorial sea regardless of whether an artificial island has been built on top of it."
China claims nearly all of the South China Sea and Washington has criticized its construction of islands and build-up of military facilities there, concerned they could be used to restrict free movement and broaden Beijing's strategic reach.
U.S. allies and partners in the region had grown anxious as the Trump administration held off on carrying out South China Sea operations during its first few months in office.
Greg Poling of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank said that under international law, Mischief Reef was not entitled to a territorial sea as it was underwater at high tide before it was built up by China.
"This was a statement to the Chinese," he said.
"The previous two freedom-of-navigation operations only challenged China's demand for prior notification for innocent passage through the territorial sea; this one asserted that there is no territorial sea at all."
The Trump administration vowed to conduct more robust South China Sea operations after Barack Obama was criticized for reinforcing China's claims by sticking to innocent passage.
Even so, this was the first freedom-of-navigation operation since October and since Trump took office in January.
It comes ahead of a visit to Singapore next week by U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to discuss security with regional counterparts.
Beijing said two Chinese guided-missile warships had warned the U.S. vessel to leave the waters and that it had lodged "stern representations" with the United States.
China's claims in the South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes each year, are contested by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Chinese Aggressions

In a First Under Trump, a U.S. Warship Challenges Beijing's Claims in the South China Sea
By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart

A satellite image of Mischief Reef located in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea on Feb. 18, 2016. USGS/NASA Landsat data/Orbital Horizon/Gallo Images/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — A U.S. Navy warship sailed within 12 nautical miles of an artificial island built up by China in the South China Sea, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, the first such challenge to Beijing in the strategic waterway since Donald Trump took office.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the USS Dewey traveled close to the Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, among a string of islets, reefs and shoals over which China has territorial disputes with its neighbors.
The reedom of navigation operation, which is sure to anger China, comes as Trump is seeking Beijing's cooperation to rein in ally North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.
Territorial waters are generally defined by U.N. convention as extending at most 12 nautical miles from a state's coastline.

One U.S. official said it was the first operation near a land feature which was included in a ruling last year against China by an international arbitration court in The Hague. 

The court invalidated China's claim to sovereignty over large swathes of the South China Sea.
The U.S. patrol, the first of its kind since October, marked the latest attempt to counter what Washington sees as Beijing's efforts to limit freedom of navigation in the strategic waters.
The United States has criticized China's construction of the man-made islands and build-up of military facilities in the sea, and expressed concern they could be used to restrict free movement.
U.S. allies and partners in the region had grown anxious as the new administration held off on carrying out South China Sea operations during its first few months in office.
Last month, top U.S. commander in the Asia-Pacific region, Admiral Harry Harris, said the United States would likely carry out freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea soon, without offering any details.
Still, the U.S. military has a long-standing position that these operations are carried out throughout the world, including in areas claimed by allies, and they are separate from political considerations.
The Pentagon said in a statement it was continuing regular freedom of navigation operations and would do more in the future but gave no details of the latest mission.
"We operate in the Asia-Pacific region on a daily basis, including in the South China Sea. We operate in accordance with international law," Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said in the statement.

U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS
Under the previous administration, the U.S. Navy conducted several such voyages through the South China Sea. 

The last operation was approved by then-President Barack Obama.
China's claims to the South China Sea, which sees about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade pass every year, are challenged by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
The latest U.S. patrol is likely to exacerbate U.S.-China tensions that had eased since Trump hosted Xi Jinping for a summit at the U.S. leader's Florida resort last month.
Trump lambasted China during the 2016 presidential campaign, accusing Beijing of stealing U.S. jobs with unfair trade policies, manipulating its currency in its favor and militarizing parts of the South China Sea.
In December, after winning office, he upended protocol by taking a call from the president of self-ruled Taiwan, which China regards as its own sacred territory.
But since meeting Xi at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump has praised Xi for efforts to restrain North Korea, though Pyongyang has persisted with ballistic missile tests despite international condemnation.
U.S.-based South China Sea expert Greg Poling of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the operation was also the first conducted by the United States close to an artificial feature built by China not entitled to a territorial sea under international law.
Previous freedom of navigation operations have gone within 12 nautical miles of Subi and Fiery Cross reefs, two other features in the Spratlys built up by China, but both of those features are entitled to a territorial sea.
Mischief Reef was not entitled to a territorial sea as it was underwater at high tide before it was built up by China and was not close enough to another feature entitled to such a territorial sea, said Poling.
He said the key question was whether the U.S. warship had engaged in a real challenge to the Chinese claims by turning on radar or launching a helicopter or boat -- actions not permitted in a territorial sea under international law.
Otherwise, critics say, the operation would have resembled what is known as "innocent passage" and could have reinforced rather than challenged China's claim to a territorial limit around the reef.