The U.S.-China Spat at Sea.

The U.S.-China Spat at Sea. http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=22848&prog=zch

Don't expect China to stop harassing U.S. ships anytime soon.

Just days after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shook hands
and pledged cooperation with China, the countries' first Obama-era
spat broke out on the high seas. On March 9, the White House lodged an
official complaint with Beijing: Five Chinese vessels had surrounded
the USNS Impeccable south of the Chinese mainland near Hainan island,
forcing the surveyor ship to take evasive maneuvers. Just five days
earlier in the Yellow Sea, between mainland China and the Korean
Peninsula, another U.S. ship, Victorious, was reportedly harassed by a
Chinese vessel using a high-intensity spotlight. Despite slow-burning
U.S. concerns about China's growing military presence, the incidents
seemed to come without provocation or precedent -- an unwelcome
surprise for a fresh U.S. administration.

In fact, the harassments of the underwater-survey ships were just the
latest episodes in a series of face-offs between Chinese forces and
the U.S. missions operating along China's coastline. In April 2001,
for example, a U.S. EP-3 electronic surveillance aircraft collided
with a harassing Chinese fighter, also in the vicinity of Hainan. The
Chinese pilot died, and the heavily damaged U.S. aircraft was forced
to make an emergency landing on the island where the U.S. crew was
subsequently detained. A minor diplomatic crisis ensued. Now, Beijing
is again resorting to dangerous maneuvers in close proximity to U.S.
surveillance vessels. All of these incidents, along with other similar
but less tense confrontations, have occurred within China's exclusive
economic zone (EEZ), which extends 200 nautical miles from China's
coastline.

So what is the United States looking for along China's coast, and why
does China care? What's the game here?

In a word: intelligence. Since the late 1990s, the United States has
increased its efforts to learn more about China's steadily improving
defense forces. To do so, the U.S. military has deployed surveillance
ships and aircraft in what the United States regards as international
waters and airspace near the Chinese coast. Washington views such
missions as essential to deterring or defeating future Chinese
military aggression against Taiwan and generally keeping track of
Beijing's most potentially threatening military deployments.

The Chinese government, for its part, regards such U.S. surveillance
as both illegal and unjust: illegal because, in Beijing's view, the
missions violate the Chinese interpretation of Article 58 of the U.N.
Convention of the Law of the Sea governing the use of EEZs. (These
oceanic zones, China argues, are near-sovereign security spaces for
military activity as well as economic -- even foreign surveillance is
prohibited.) Unjust because, to China, the U.S. actions are not just a
violation of the Law of the Sea treaty but are aggressive, "in-your-
face" military intimidation against a peaceful country by an arrogant
superpower.

Washington insists that Article 58 permits peaceful activities within
the EEZ, including surveillance and transits by military vessels. The
United States has always been wedded, as a global military and
economic power, to the idea of free use of the ocean and airspace
beyond a country's territorial waters, which extend to a maximum of 12
nautical miles from the coastline. Washington also argues that China
is violating international law by conducting dangerous maneuvers
against U.S. ships.

According to the Pentagon, U.S. naval ships and aircraft regularly
operate within China's EEZ without incident, and no one is sure why
the Chinese chose this moment to respond in such a provocative manner.
The Chinese government claims it has demanded repeatedly through
diplomatic channels that Washington cease such "unlawful activities,"
apparently to no avail. The Impeccable's exact location may provide a
clue to Chinese motivations: The ship was operating within 100 miles
of a very sensitive Chinese naval base on Hainan. It is unclear
whether the U.S. ship was collecting data on the activities of a new
class of nuclear submarines that use the Hainan base or was simply
engaged in normal underwater mapping activities within China's EEZ.
China may simply be responding to what it sees as an intolerable level
of surveillance, directed at one of its most secretive and sensitive
military assets: submarines.

Intelligence concerns aside, Beijing's official reaction is a bit
harder to fathom. The Chinese might intend to express anger over
continued U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. They might also be hoping to
generate support for their expansive definition of sovereignty in
EEZs. It's even possible that these recent incidents could have
occurred without the knowledge of China's top civilian leaders. Senior
authorities such as President Hu Jintao (who also oversees military
policies) are surely aware of the aggressive push back against U.S.
surveillance, but it is possible that Hu is not informed beforehand
about the timing and nature of specific actions taken. The Chinese
Foreign Ministry bureaucracy, by contrast, is probably out of the loop
from the outset, only brought in when issues become public and
controversial.

There's much we don't yet understand about this latest incident. But
clearly, at least some Chinese leaders regard this issue as important
enough to risk a confrontation with Washington, despite a steadily
improving bilateral relationship. The apparent willingness of Chinese
leaders to tolerate dangerous maneuvers as a form of protest suggests
a lack of regard for international laws governing ship and air
contacts, raising greater concerns about Beijing's regard for
internationally accepted norms.

Unfortunately, incidents at sea will undoubtedly continue. Both sides
hold incompatible assumptions and have competing interests. Meanwhile,
neither party looks to be interested in compromising to develop
acceptable rules of the road. The situation is dangerous. These
disputes over military activities could become a primary trigger for a
future serious crisis -- if not conflict -- between Washington and
Beijing. China's military capability will only grow, and its apparent
resolve to keep the U.S. military out of its business is liable to
increase accordingly.
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