China’s navy has edge over US through sheer weight of numbers in dispute over South China Sea, say analysts
When a US Navy guided-missile destroyer sailed near one of Beijing’s artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea this week it was operating in a maritime domain bristling with Chinese ships.
While the US Navy is expected to keep its technological edge in Asia for decades, China’s potential trump card is sheer weight of numbers, with dozens of naval and coastguard vessels routinely deployed in the South China Sea.
Asian and US naval officers say encounters with Chinese vessels, once relatively rare, are now frequent, even at the outer edges of the controversial nine-dash line Beijing uses to stake its claim to 90 per cent of the waters.
Such encounters will only increase after American officials said the US Navy would conduct regular freedom-of-navigation operations akin to the patrol by the USS Lassen, which penetrated the 12-nautical-mile territorial limit of Subi Reef in the Spratly archipelago on Tuesday.
“They are everywhere and are always very keen to let you know they are there,” said one US naval officer in Asia, requesting anonymity, referring to the Chinese Navy and coastguard.