|
 A range of security experts said Washington's so-called freedom of
navigation patrols would have to be regular to be effective, given
Chinese ambitions to project power deep into maritime Southeast Asia
and beyond.
But China would likely resist attempts to make such U.S. actions
routine, some said, raising the political and military stakes.
China's navy could for example try to block or attempt to surround
U.S. vessels, they said, risking an escalation.
Given months of debate already in Washington over the first such
patrol close to the Chinese outposts since 2012, several regional
security experts and former naval officers said the U.S. government
might be reluctant to do them often.
U.S. allies such as Japan and Australia are unlikely to follow with
their own direct challenges to China, despite their concerns over
freedom of navigation along vital trade routes, they added.
"This cannot be a one-off," said Ian Storey, a South China Sea
expert at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
"The U.S. navy will have to conduct these kinds of patrols on a
regular basis to reinforce their message."
The Obama administration has said it would test China's territorial
claims to the area after months of pressure from Congress and the
U.S. military. It has not given a timeframe.
"I think we have been very clear - that we intend to do this," State
Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters last Monday.
Chinese Foreign Ministry officials said this month that Beijing
would "never allow any country to violate China's territorial waters
and airspace in the Spratly islands in the name of protecting
navigation and overflight".
Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, 12-nautical mile
limits cannot be set around man-made islands built on previously
submerged reefs.
Four of the seven reefs China has reclaimed over the last two years
were completely submerged at high tide before construction began,
legal scholars say.
China claims most of the South China Sea. Other claimants are
Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
"NO-GO ZONE"
Bonnie Glaser, a security expert at Washington's Center for
Strategic and International Studies, said U.S. missions would likely
be regular, with the navy wanting to ensure it did not become
effectively shut out of the area.
 "I know the U.S. does not want that outcome. Nobody wants to give
the Chinese a new no-go zone and an effective territorial sea they
are not entitled to," she said.
Glaser said she believed China would be careful about interfering
with a U.S. patrol, despite past frictions.
Myles Caggins, a spokesman for the White House National Security
Council, declined to comment when asked whether a U.S. show of force
might be more symbolism than substance unless there was a sustained
naval effort, or whether the administration was factoring in further
Chinese assertiveness.
[to top of second column] |
He said U.S. thinking was illustrated by President Barack Obama's
statement at a news conference with Chinese President Xi Jinping in
Washington last month that "the United States will continue to sail,
fly and operate anywhere that international law allows".
Despite Xi's comment at the news conference that the man-made
islands would not be militarised, some mainland Chinese analysts
believe the reclamations will form the heart of a new military
screen protecting Chinese submarines on southern Hainan Island, as
well as boasting extensive civilian facilities.
These submarines will soon carry nuclear weapons and represent the
core of China's nuclear deterrence, giving it a second strike
capability.
"DANGEROUS ESCALATION"
While China's outposts are seen as vulnerable in a conflict, up
until that point they will allow Beijing to extend both civilian
activities, such as fishing and oil exploration, as well as military
patrols. One airstrip is finished and two others are being built.
Zhang Baohui, a Chinese security expert at Hong Kong's Lingnan
University, said he feared a "dangerous escalation", with China
likely to react to any attempt to make the patrols routine.
Rather than freedom of navigation, Zhang said he believed Beijing
saw the issue as one of great power rivalry.
"It is all about power, and that is what makes this so dangerous,"
he said.
China had never formally declared a 12-mile territorial zone around
the reclamations, so any U.S. show of force was premature, he added.
Sam Bateman, an adviser to Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies and a former Australian naval officer, also
noted the lack of any formal declaration, adding Washington risked
underestimating China's angst over being contained in the South
China Sea.
"There is a real risk of a confrontation between China and the U.S.
that the U.S. might have to withdraw from," he said, urging more
diplomacy instead.
"I'm not sure what their end-game is."
(Reporting by Greg Torode in HONG KONG; Additional reporting by Matt
Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom in WASHINGTON; Editing by Dean
Yates)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
