China-US close encounters ‘raise conflict risk in South China Sea’

Name: More footage emerges from 2018 near collision of US and China warships in South China Sea
Uploaded: 2020-06-16T13:20:11.000Z
Duration: 1 min 30 s
Description: More footage emerges from 2018 near collision of US and China warships in South China Sea

Warships from both countries came within 100m of each other in April, Chinese military insider says

Washington and Beijing need to find a way to stop such incidents escalating and going out of control, maritime analyst says

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The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt was hit by a coronavirus outbreak in March. Photo: US Navy via AP

Minnie Chan

Published: 9:20pm, 16 Jun 2020Updated: 10:45pm, 16 Jun 2020

China and the US are running the risk of conflict and should come up with a way to manage such crises as their warships engage in close encounters in the South China Sea, according to maritime strategy specialists.

A Chinese military insider said that in one incident in April, vessels from both nations came as close as 100 metres of each other.

“That kinds of incidents indicate a lack of political trust between the two militaries,” the insider said, declining to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The source did not specify which warships were involved in the encounter.

Beijing and Washington have competed to deploy more warships to the region since crews on the American Pacific-based aircraft carriers the USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Nimitz were hit by the coronavirus in late March, while the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s carriers, the Liaoning and the Shandong, were apparently unaffected.

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More footage emerges from 2018 near collision of US and China warships in South China Sea

Hu Bo, director of the Centre for Maritime Strategy Studies at Peking University, said the new US deployments included the USS America amphibious assault ship. The PLA Navy also deployed a similar number of vessels, Hu said.