|
 As early as mid-May, the Pentagon was considering sending military
aircraft and ships to assert the principle of freedom of navigation
around China's artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago after
Defense Secretary Ash Carter requested options to respond to their
rapid construction.
That patrol eventually took place on Tuesday when the USS Lassen, a
guided-missile destroyer, sailed within 12 nautical miles of Subi
Reef, triggering an angry rebuke from China and threatening to
ratchet up tensions between the world's two biggest economies.
An intense, prolonged internal U.S. debate over the patrol revealed
by Reuters' reporting appears to contradict Washington's insistence
that it was simply another routine freedom-of-navigation operation.
The months leading up to the patrol allowed Beijing to harden its
stance and, according to some U.S. officials and security experts,
blew the operation out of proportion.
Washington's caution also caused disquiet among some military
officials in Japan and the Philippines, both U.S. security allies,
feeding concerns that China's ambitions in the South China Sea would
go unchecked.
The Pentagon and U.S. military officials had been ready for months
to carry out patrols, but ran into "repeated stalling" from the
White House and State Department, said one U.S. defense official,
who requested anonymity.
Both wanted to avoid giving the appearance that any operation was in
response to other events, the official said, such as the breach of
21 million U.S. personnel records that has been linked to hackers in
China. China has denied involvement in the attack.
"The concern was that, if we looked like we were responding to
something the Chinese had done, it would undermine our assertion
that this is a matter of international law, and our rights to
navigate the seas," said the official.
The State Department did not respond officially to queries on why
the mission took so long. The White House declined official comment
on the criticism.
Pressure for action was growing at a sensitive time in U.S.-China
relations, as major powers moved closer to agreeing a nuclear deal
with Iran and as Washington prepared for a state visit by Chinese
President Xi Jinping in September.
By late September, a consensus had been reached to go ahead with the
patrol, despite Xi’s assertion in Washington that China had “no
intention” to militarize the islands.
Obama, who has sought to avoid confrontations with U.S. rivals and
reduce direct U.S. involvement in wars, had to carefully weigh the
need to take action with the risks of sparking an unintentional
armed conflict that could have severe diplomatic and economic
consequences.
Under his "pivot" to Asia, 60 percent of the U.S. Navy's assets will
be deployed in the Pacific region by 2020, in a challenge to China's
rapidly growing maritime power and ambitions.
Another U.S. official said a key reason for the lengthy internal
deliberations was to be sure that every possible measure was being
taken to minimize the risk of a U.S.-China military confrontation at
sea. Having Obama and other senior U.S. officials publicly telegraph
the likelihood of a naval patrol in the area was part of a “no
surprises” strategy toward the Chinese, the official said.
 A senior Obama administration official said the government had gone
through a "rigorous inter-agency process" to come up with options
for the president.
“Our aim was to ensure we made smart decisions to advance our
strategic objectives in the Asia-Pacific region, including on
maritime issues,” the official said.
NOT SO ROUTINE
Pentagon officials say the United States regularly conducts
freedom-of-navigation operations around the world to challenge
excessive maritime claims. China claims most of the South China Sea.
Other claimants are Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and
Taiwan.
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, including Subi, were submerged at high tide
before construction began, legal scholars say.
Another source familiar with the matter said the administration's
determination to keep the issue focused on the 12-mile territorial
limits and avoid any sense the patrols were aimed at challenging
Chinese sovereignty had delayed the process. While it insists on
freedom of navigation through the waterway, Washington takes no
position on the various sovereignty claims.
[to top of second column] |
Apparently attempting to avoid further stoking Chinese anger, the
White House stuck to its plan to keep its comments relatively
low-key in the aftermath of the patrol, portraying it as a routine
"freedom of navigation operation" that did not assert any "special
specific U.S. rights".
But the hold-up subverted the initial intent to make the patrols a
routine part of operating in one of the world's busiest sea lanes,
through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year, the
source said.
"Delaying the patrols actually made it into a bigger deal," said the
source. "This may have diminished the initial strategy that these
patrols should be a regular, ordinary matter."
Bonnie Glaser a security expert at Washington's Center for Strategic
and International Studies, said the mission was complicated by the
fact it took so long.
"All of this attention that has been given to it has undermined the
effectiveness of freedom of navigation operations," she said.
PRESSURE FROM ASIAN ALLIES
One former senior U.S. official said there had been concern within
the administration, dating back to last year, that China might have
drawn the "wrong lesson" from the Western response to Russia's
seizure of Ukraine's Crimea region in early 2014 as well as Obama's
avoidance of direct military action in Syria.
Since China's land reclamation began in December 2013, it had
reclaimed more than 2,900 acres (1,170 hectares) of land as of June,
the Pentagon said in a recent report. China had reclaimed 17 times
more land than the other claimants combined over the past 40 years,
it added.
Pressure for action from U.S. allies in the region grew after
China's island-building became front-page news this year following
the release of high-resolution satellite images that showed the
scale of the work.
In the Philippines, civilian and military leaders publicly welcomed
Tuesday's patrol.
But one Philippine military official, speaking on condition of
anonymity, added: "It's about time America showed it remained
engaged in this region."
Tokyo also said it supported the mission, although one commentator
said there had been some scepticism in Japan over whether it would
go ahead.
"I think many serious people must have been relieved to hear that
the United States did what they said (they would do), unlike in
similar incidents in Syria," said Kunihiko Miyake, a former Japanese
diplomat.
None of America's allies in Asia have run freedom of navigation
patrols past China's islands.
The U.S. administration has long been aware that patrols alone will
not be enough to deter China's island-building but believed it was
still important to more directly challenge China's territorial
claims, a source close to the matter said ahead of the operation.
Not all experts pointed the finger at the White House and the State
Department for not acting sooner.
Doug Paal, director of the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, said he believed the U.S. Navy had been
internally conflicted for a few years over whether to go ahead with
the patrol.
"Now both Beijing and Washington have to show their people they are
tough and will not be pushed around, without actually triggering an
entirely purposeless conflict," added Paal.
A senior Navy official denied there had been any internal Navy
tension over the patrol, adding that such decisions had to be made
by the defense secretary and the president.
(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington; Linda Sieg, Tim
Kelly and Nobuhiro Kubo in Tokyo and Manuel Mogato in Manila.
Writing by Dean Yates; editing by Stuart Grudgings.)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
