The USS Lassen on patrol. Reuters/US Navy handout.
A US Navy destroyer has been sent to the South China Sea to challenge Chinese territorial claims. Reuters. The USS Lassen is set to patrol near the Subi and Mischief reefs in the Spratly islands. China has embarked on a massive building project on those features, transforming them into actual islands. China also claims a 12 mile exclusionary zone around these artificial islands. The United States, committed to the concept of freedom of navigation, especially in critical area for trade like the South China Sea, rejects these claims. Trillions of dollars worth of trade passes through the South China Sea each year. The Lassen also plans to visit other artificial islands made by Vietnam and the Philippines. These challenges to the various nautical claims in the region are set to be a regular occurrence. China claims that they are building up these islands for peaceful purposes but the US claims that they are building airbases in the region.
My Comment:
This is a dangerous game to be playing for everyone involved. Though I don't think this will lead to war, it seems inconceivable to me that China won't at least challenge the USS Lassen when it arrives. What that would consist of is anyone's guess but I can't imagine that the Chinese will just ignore this. It's possible they will respond with ships of their own or perhaps even sending jets in for a fly-by. I don't think there will be a deliberate attack but there is always a possibility, however remote, that their will be some kind of accident. A plane could crash, ships could hit each other or a warning shot could go wrong, any number of things could go wrong.
All that being said though, I think this is the right move. We need to challenge China's territorial claims. The idea that you can just build an island in the middle of the ocean and then use that to claim 12 miles of territory is just crazy. If we allow these claims to stand, any country can just build an island anywhere to claim exclusion zones. That really cannot stand, especially in a place as important as the South China Sea. And that goes for all the players in this drama. China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Indonesia, The Philippines and Malaysia have have made claims and all of them need to be challenged.
One wonders if this is enough of a challenge though. Sure, a US Navy destroy is a fairly powerful ship. It's got a lot of firepower and is more then a match for many other ships out there. But it might not be enough to send a message. In a perfect world, we would send an entire carrier group to the region. That would send a clear message, though it would also be a significant risk. After all, any attack on our aircraft carriers is treated the same as an attack as our country itself. That raises the stakes quite a bit. And given how committed our carriers are right now, we probably don't have one to spare. That's one of the downsides to our adventures in the Middle East, they demand a lot of attention from our Navy, to the point that we can't always deploy them to where we need them.
I don't buy for a second that China is using these artificial islands for peaceful purposes. It's clear to me what China's strategy is. They want to build up these islands to use them as stationary aircraft carriers. Much like the Japanese did during the second world war, they plan to use these islands as stations for attack aircraft to counter the threat from US aircraft carriers and our navy in general. I could also see them building up missile defenses, both anti-air and anti-ship, on these islands as well. With aircraft and missiles deployed, it would make it much more difficult to challenge China in any war. These outer defenses would make it harder to strike China itself and would partially neuter our naval advantage.
China's main concern is countering our carriers and naval power. Building up these islands is just a small part of this strategy. In addition to these airbases, China is building their own carriers to counter ours. They are also investing in ballistic anti-ship missiles, which have been called carrier killers. Critically, they are developing aircraft, radar and anti-air missiles to counter our air superiority. It can be argued that once the F-35 is rolled out, the Chinese will have better fighters then we have, other then our F-22's. It's very possible that in a couple of decades we won't even be able to get close to these islands.
Of course there are other reasons for China to build up these islands. Most of them are economic. The article mentioned that trillions of dollars pass through the South China Sea. Controlling the area gives a lot of leverage during trade disputes. The article failed to mention the obvious role that fishing plays in these disputes. The South China Sea is a rich fishing area. Fishing is a multi-billion dollar industry and all the countries involved also need to feed their people. Of course over-fishing could very easily make these areas economically useless, but that's nothing new. Finally, there is always the possibility that oil or other resources could be found in the area. The benefits of securing those resources are obvious.
I think China will probably win out in the end in this dispute. Not in the short term, mind you, but eventually I think they triumph. They are investing heavily in their military and there will come a point soon where we won't be able to challenge them anymore. There is no will in the United States to invest in our own weapons and military and at this point it is needed to counter the billions of dollars the Chinese are investing in their own military. There also just isn't the will needed for the United States to actually go to war over anything in the region. Sure, we have allies in the region, but are we really willing to risk nuclear war to protect them, or the concept of freedom of navigation? My guess is no, at least with the current administration. Perhaps a new president will act differently, but at this point I think China will probably win out in the end. Until then, expect more of these patrols.
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