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.

Facing the China menace

The trade imbalance and a military showdown in the South China Sea loom large
By Peter Morici

The new president will face immediate challenges — the war against ISIS, fixing Obamacare and boosting sluggish growth — but the economic and geopolitical challenges posed by an increasingly assertive China are perhaps the most vexing and far reaching for the American economy and global leadership.
Over the last three decades, China has accomplished hyper growth by supplying western consumers with inexpensive products and attracting western investment to participate in the export boom and sell to its growing middle class. 

Accomplishing all this, it has hardly played fairly according to the established norms of global trade.
According to Hillary Clinton, China subsidizes exports, manipulates its currency and more to the detriment of American workers. 

She promises to appoint a special trade prosecutor to enforce U.S. rights under international agreements.
Donald Trump would slap on 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports to force renegotiation of those agreements to get a better deal for Americans.
If they are serious, it’s about time.
The $320 billion annual deficit on trade in goods and services with China slashes demand for American-made products, curtails funding for U.S.-based R&D, kills millions of jobs and depresses wages, and is a principal cause of the blight in communities like Reading, Pennsylvania and Hickory, North Carolina.
Just as menacing, the trillions in cumulative trade surpluses China has amassed are financing a dramatic pivot in its industrial, military and foreign policies that threatens security in the Pacific and America’s prosperity and standing with allies around the globe.
As wages rise in Chinese coastal manufacturing centers, jobs move further west in China and elsewhere in Southeast Asia causing major social disruptions. 

For example, the population of Dongguan, a major manufacturing center near Hong Kong, has fallen from 12 to 7 million over the last decade.
To buffer job losses and limit political unrest, Beijing is pursuing a two-pronged strategy.
It is imposing tougher restrictions on foreign investment, which further depresses the value of the yuan, ladling on more subsidies for basic manufacturing, tightening administration restrictions on imports and consolidating state owned enterprises to enhance their monopoly power.
Simultaneously, it is encouraging more technology-intensive activities that strike at the heart of American and European competitiveness through lavish subsidies for startups, acquisitions of U.S. and European businesses, and toughened regulation of American and other foreign technology companies operating in China. 

Consequently, many products and components used by its basic assembly and fabrication operations, once sourced in the United States and Europe, are now made in China.
Most of those tactics either violate WTO rules or are decidedly asymmetrical. 

For example, the United States, Germany and European nations generally permit Chinese to purchase companies outright, whereas western investors must offer a Chinese joint-venture partner at least a 50 percent stake when investing in the Middle Kingdom.
While Chinese technology still lags western capabilities in many areas both complex and mundane, such as rice cookers, it has managed to leap ahead in some fields — for example, satellite technology for encrypted communications.
The cash earned from its huge trade surpluses is financing a massive build-up in naval and air power, militarization of the South China Sea, and about 20 port facilities the Chinese navy can access in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. 

It has established an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and China is plowing billions of dollars into economies in Asia and Africa through transportation projects and direct investment.
Obama has been hesitant to take the advice of U.S. defense leaders in challenging China’s artificial island and militarization of the vital South China Sea, and the combination of Chinese muscle and billions in new investment has persuaded longtime U.S. ally, the Philippines, to realign with China.
The latter substantially undermines the U.S. strategy of resolving the sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea and securing the sea lanes from Chinese control by relying on the recent U.N. tribunal ruling denying Beijing’s claims and through U.S. military and diplomatic cooperation with regional allies.
The South China Sea has huge sea-bed mineral deposits and is a vital passage for some $5 trillion annually of international shipping. 

Open access has been secured by the U.S. Navy in cooperation with regional allies since World War II, and the stability of that framework is vital not merely to global commerce but also U.S. credibility with strategic allies in the Middle East and Europe.
The new president must prepare for a diplomatic and military showdown in the Pacific and confront Beijing on the massive trade imbalance that finances Chinese mercantilism and adventurism.
American prosperity and security depend on it.