US Navy stepping up activities in South China Sea, says Chinese think tank
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The US has been challenging what it describes as restrictions on innocent passage imposed by Beijing in the South China Sea, with its freedom of navigation operations sometimes warned off by the People’s Liberation Army.
“There has never been such a situation before as far as I can remember,” Hu said. “Benfold looks like it is catching up to a schedule.”
Voyages by US warships near disputed islands in the South China Sea were relatively infrequent, Hu said.
“In the past, for example, they made such voyages when passing through the South China Sea for visits or exercises – passing by [these disputed islands] on the way,” he said. “But not this time.”
Hu said frequent consecutive visits by one warship were “relatively rare”, adding that the US Navy has been transiting the Taiwan Strait about once a month.
Collin Koh, a research fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, said the frequency of US Navy freedom of navigation operations had actually been reduced, with the last such operation conducted in January.
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He said the Biden administration had instead recalibrated the US approach to the South China Sea, focusing more on engaging regional military partners and allies.
“The US Navy forward-deployed forces are maximising limited resources and … in recent years there’s been an uptick in US military engagements with regional counterparts,” Koh said.
“The other observation I have is that given the Biden administration’s focus on promoting ‘common sense guardrails’ with China, military show of force activities would have to be properly calibrated, and judicious enough to balance between the political need to signal to China, while ensuring that tensions are kept under the lid to avoid unnecessary escalation.”
Hu’s think tank said US military activities in the South China Sea had been intensifying recently and the situation was likely to continue for a while.
Anti-submarine reconnaissance by US military aeroplanes had also intensified recently, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported, with 28 US military aircraft operating in the South China Sea, including 15 large reconnaissance aircraft and at least 13 P-8A Poseidon anti-submarine aircraft.
In addition, more US Navy support ships were being spotted in the South China Sea, with at least six there recently, including submarine supply ships and oil tankers, “which also reflects the intensity of US military activities in the South China Sea”, the report said.
At least two P-8As operating from a US base in the Philippines provided intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support for the Benfold near the Spratly Islands, Hu’s think tank said on Twitter.
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The Benfold left the Japanese island of Okinawa on July 10, the think tank said.
Hu said such provocations by the US are not beneficial to Sino-US relations, even though voyages by a single destroyer pose no threat to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
“This kind of action is a bit of an over-politicised military operation,” he said. “As a result, it is not conducive to interactions between the two militaries.”
Additional reporting by Teddy Ng
