Oh oh
American warships have sailed into disputed waters in the South China Sea, according to military analysts, heightening a standoff in the waterway and sharpening the rivalry between the United States and China, even as much of the world is in lockdown because of the coronavirus.
The America, an amphibious assault ship, and the Bunker Hill, a guided missile cruiser, entered contested waters off Malaysia. At the same time, a Chinese government ship in the area has for days been tailing a Malaysian state oil company ship carrying out exploratory drilling. Chinese and Australian warships have also powered into nearby waters, according to the defense experts.
Despite working to control a pandemic that spread from China earlier this year, Beijing has not reduced its activities in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway through which one-third of global shipping flows. Instead, the Chinese governmentâs yearslong pattern of assertiveness has only intensified, military analysts said.
âItâs a quite deliberate Chinese strategy to try to maximize what they perceive as being a moment of distraction and the reduced capability of the United States to pressure neighbors,â said Peter Jennings, a former Australian defense official who is the executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
Since January, when the coronavirus epidemic began to surge, the Chinese government and Coast Guard ships, along with maritime militias, have been plying contested waters in the South China Sea, tangling with regional maritime enforcement agencies and harassing fishermen.
Earlier this month, the Vietnamese accused a Chinese patrol ship of ramming and sinking a Vietnamese fishing boat.
Last month, China opened two new research stations on artificial reefs it has built on maritime turf claimed by the Philippines and others. The reefs are also equipped with defense silos and military-grade runways.
Over the weekend, the Chinese government announced that it had formally established two new districts in the South China Sea that include dozens of contested islets and reefs. Many are submerged bits of atoll that do not confer territorial rights, according to international law.
After the sinking of the Vietnamese boat, the State Department urged China in a statement âto remain focused on supporting international efforts to combat the global pandemic, and to stop exploiting the distraction or vulnerability of other states to expand its unlawful claims in the South China Sea.â
The Chinese government has made vast claims to the South China Sea that conflict with demarcations made by five other governments. An international tribunal has dismissed most of Chinaâs claims to the waterway, but Beijing does not recognize the ruling and has instead built naval bases on reefs it now controls.
While the United States has no territorial claims in the South China Sea, the American Navy says it has kept the peace in these waters for decades. American military officials have chastised China for its increased militarization of the waterway.
And regional governments have worried that the United States has a habit of briefly showing up in hot spots only to depart, leaving them to contend with an increasingly muscular Beijing.
âWhat is the intention of the U.S. here?â said Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, a think-tank in Singapore. âIs it just to say, âWeâre here?â Or are they going to shadow the Chinese survey ship to try to stop it from operating?â
The United States Indo-Pacific Command did not specify the exact location of the two American warships, citing operational restrictions, but it confirmed that the warships were in the South China Sea.
On Tuesday, the United States Navy posted pictures of the warships on Twitter, accompanied by a third vessel, a destroyer called the Barry, saying that the expeditionary strike group was operating âin support of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.â
The area where the American warships have been sailing is around 200 nautical miles off the coast of Malaysia, defense experts said. Malaysia, China and Vietnam all claim rights to the natural resources in this part of the contested waterway.
The Chinese survey ship, called the Haiyang Dizhi 8, had previously tracked similar oil operations off Vietnam.
Defense experts who have reviewed information about military movements in the area but are not authorized to share them publicly, said that a Chinese warship has been operating off the coast of Malaysia. The destroyer is called the Wuhan, named after the city where the coronavirus outbreak began.
At a time when China has been sending doctors and personal protective equipment to Malaysia to combat the viral epidemic there, the Malaysian government has not publicly protested the Chinese survey shipâs activities or its security cordon of armed Chinese Coast Guard vessels. The prolonged presence of Chinese maritime militia and Coast Guard ships in another oil-rich area off Malaysia has not prompted an official protest either.
You are so weird.