South China Sea Strategies for other nations (Not China)

Blackstone said:

An Australian think tank wants the Trump administration to draw China a redline in the South China Sea at Scarborough Shoal. The phrase "you (Beijing) shall not pass" was the bottom line. But, what exactly does that mean? I assume the author doesn't mean the black knight from Monty Python.

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Jura said:

Yesterday at 8:05 AM
and now I read PACOM to Conduct South China Sea FONOPs ‘Soon,’ But Also Needs China To Help With North Korea

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Six weeks ago, the United States Pacific Command requested permission from senior American officials for a United States warship to sail within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal, a disputed reef in the South China Sea that is claimed by the Philippines and China.

The Navy had good reason to think the request would be granted. During last year’s campaign,

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labeled President Barack Obama as weak in defending international waters in the South China Sea, where Beijing has started a sharp military buildup to reclaim land, install runways and haul equipment onto reefs and shoals it claims as its own. Secretary of State

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, during his confirmation hearing in January, called for China to be denied access to the artificial islands. And foreign policy experts and Asia watchers braced for a return to routine Navy patrols within China’s self-proclaimed territorial waters, something Mr. Obama allowed sparingly.

But instead, the Pacific Command request — and two others by the Navy in February — was turned down by top Pentagon officials before it even made it to President Trump’s desk. More than 100 days into the Trump presidency, no American Navy ship has gone within 12 miles of any of the disputed islands in the South China Sea, Defense Department officials said.

The decision not to challenge China’s territorial claims represents a remarkable deference toward Beijing from an administration that is increasingly turning toward President

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for help amid the escalating crisis in the Korean Peninsula. It remained unclear on Tuesday whether it was Defense Secretary

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; Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; or one of their deputies who turned down the three requests. Defense officials said the White House was not involved.

Robert Daly, the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center, said of the Navy excursions, officially known as freedom of navigation operations, or Fonops: “All of the language, combined with the fact that the Republican foreign policy establishment had been critical of Obama for not carrying out enough Fonops, means there was a wide expectation that Trump would put down a marker early. And that hasn’t happened.”

The simmering crisis in North Korea seems to have changed the Trump administration’s earlier assumptions on how to handle China. Mr. Trump campaigned on being tough on Beijing, promising that he would label China a currency manipulator and would go after Beijing on trade.

But with North Korea escalating its provocative behavior the past three months, attempting nine missile launches on six occasions since Mr. Trump came to power, his administration has adopted a more conciliatory air with Beijing as the president seeks help to rein in Pyongyang.

With each missile launch, Mr. Trump’s newfound affection for the Chinese leader, Mr. Xi, has increased. Last week, after the most recent launch, Mr. Trump

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: “North Korea disrespected the wishes of China and its highly respected president when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!”

Decisions to deny the Navy’s requests to sail within 12 nautical miles of disputed islands in the South China Sea were fairly routine during the Obama administration. In fact, Mr. Obama came under sharp criticism from Republicans for suspending such excursions for more than two years, out of concern that they would further raise tensions with Beijing.

In October 2015, the Obama administration sent a

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, the Lassen, within territorial waters near Subi Reef, one of several artificial islands that China has built in the disputed Spratly Islands chain. At the time, Mr. Obama’s White House played down the episode and directed Defense Department officials not to talk about it publicly, wanting to avoid escalating a conflict.

Such hesitancy prompted harsh words from Mr. Trump during the presidential campaign. In an

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in March 2016, Mr. Trump said that Beijing had built in the South China Sea “a military fortress, the likes of which perhaps the world has not seen.”

“Amazing, actually,” he said. “They do that at will because they have no respect for our president and they have no respect for our country.”

Mr. Tillerson came to office saying that China’s island-building campaign was “akin to Russia’s taking of Crimea.” He said that the Trump administration was “going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops” and, “second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.”

That denial of access is now on the back burner. In fact, said Mr. Daly, of the Wilson Center, China has continued to militarize the islands and has bomb-proofed airplane hangars that were built on the reclaimed islands, as well as brought in additional equipment.

Chinese officials have maintained that such action does not constitute militarizing the islands. They say the islands are Chinese territory and Beijing therefore cannot militarize land it already owns. The United States and other countries disagree.

The Chinese have not yet begun construction on Scarborough Shoal. American officials have long viewed doing so as something of a red line, and have cautioned Chinese counterparts that any building on the shoal would be viewed as provocative.

Mr. Obama warned Mr. Xi at a March 2016 meeting in Washington not to start building an island at Scarborough Shoal. Late last year, an unusually large number of Chinese vessels were positioned close to the disputed reef, renewing American concerns.

A Defense Department official described the Pacific Command request last month to conduct a naval excursion within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal as a signal to the Chinese that building on the atoll remained a red line for the United States. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations more frankly, added that Navy officials believed the request to be in line with what the Trump administration wanted.

But Defense Department officials also said that Mr. Mattis and the Pentagon leadership wanted to look carefully at the strategic implications of such excursions on overall national security policy. While Mr. Mattis is far from opposed to the freedom of navigation trips, he is reviewing the American security posture around the world, Defense Department officials said.

Additionally, Washington’s hope that China will rein in North Korea has called into question the timing of the next freedom of navigation sail.

Andrew L. Oros, the author of the newly published “Japan’s Security Renaissance,” said it was far more important now to address North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons development than to pick a fight over the Navy navigation trips.

“That’s clearly the case,” Mr. Oros said. But, he said, the Trump administration still must closely monitor China’s activities and not give ground in the disputed islands.

“And I hope this doesn’t give the Chinese the impression that this is a tacit acknowledgment of Beijing’s outrageous claims of sovereignty over international waters,” he said.

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Jura said:

according to NYT Trump’s Turn Toward China Curtails Navy Patrols in Disputed Zones

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Blackstone said:

So, in addition to being the commander of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Harris is also an aspiring magician. On the other hand, I think it's in China's long-term interests to adopt current global norms on Freedom of Navigation. The reason is China is well on its way to securing the South China Sea, and so linking the Western Pacific with the Indian Ocean. It is also developing a blue-water navy to protect its interests all over the world. Some day, PLAN might want the ability to sail wherever and whenever international law allows, just like the way US has done and will continue to do no matter how much China complains.

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AndrewS said:

And is that really the way the US wants China to behave in the future towards Hawaii and California?

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Janiz said:

I haven't seen any goodwill coming from Chinese side (aside from typical - 'It's not yuor business!') regarding those issues so I don't know why US should make any concessions on their side. I you think Admiral Harris is bad for PRC then prepare for even 'better' US Pacific Fleet commanders in the future.

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AndrewS said:

If China started building a naval base in Cuba and conducting patrols in the Caribbean, would you see much goodwill coming from the USA?

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AndrewS said:

By 2025, we're probably looking at the Chinese surface fleet increasing by 3-4x, which would overmatch what the US/Japan have in place today. That estimate is based on China continuing its current rate of naval construction, which already matches the USA broadly speaking.

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Janiz said:

I don't remember anything about USA building a base in SCS...
I would call those baseless assumptions every single time when I see it on this forum...

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AndrewS said:

So what are the new bases in the Philippines that the US is operating from?

Plus it's pretty simple to see the Chinese Navy increasing in size by 3-4x.

There is 1 carrier today, plus we know there are 2 more already in construction, which will almost certainly be in service by 2025. That is 3x as many carriers already.

There are 11 modern Type-52C/D destroyers in service. There are already 12 more Type-52D/55 that we can physically see, and which will be commissioned within the next 4 years by 2020. If China continues at 3-4 per year, that's another 15-20 commissioned by 2025.

That's a total of 38-43 Type-52C/D and Type-55, which is more than 3-4x larger.

The key point for me is that in history, the world's largest trading state (which is already China) normally ends up building the world's largest navy to protect that trade.

Yet by 2025, China's navy will still be less than half the size of the US Navy, so the chances are that China will continue building.

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