joshuatree
Captain
I say just send a plane or a ship to monitor and learn from it. All the verbal objections have already been made. Learn from it and keep building up your own naval fleet.
What should China do when Japan & US conduct biggest ever military drill?
- Thread starter coykiesaol
- Start date
(prob old news but...)
Likewise, the Japanese are continuing to consider (what I mean it they are probably considering it more seriously now - maybe...) to build a military base on one of the southern islands near closer to Diaoyu/Senkaku and Taiwan (one of the islands as a candidate starts with a Y) of course to no surprise due to recent tensions there. They are also training island landing scenarios as someone mentioned before. There was a 'special episode/'blip' about it on NHK recently.
China should stand back and watch and gather as much intel as it can, actively if it can do so without being too aggressive, and passively in any case. And they will.
Russia is doing the same. They overflew the exercises, but with 450 US and Japanese aircraft participating, they were not a threat and did not stop those exercises in the least, just delayed a small portion of them momentarily, and you can bet that had the Japnese or US vessels wanted to, they could have "lit them up".
But, with N. Korea rattling sabers and even actively committing acts of war and violence against S. Korea in the area, China should do all it can to ease tensions and not make things worse by appearing to join in with N. Korea's idiocy by taking active, aggressive measures.
Just my opinion.
Oh, and BTW, though it is true that the PLAN sub surfaced in the battle group a few years back, I have it on good authority that she was, in essence, forced to surface or reap very severe consequences. This is not a story your are ever going to hear in the press or officially from either nation...but the US knew the sub was there and had "assetts" close in to the sub making it very clear that it either surfaced or be considered an immediate, real and present danger to the carrier and risk being prosecuted militarily.
Either way, thank goodness nothing more severe came of it.
solarz
Brigadier
If that is true, then why did the US not force the Chinese sub to surface before it came within torpedo range?
Cat and mouse games are played all the time. The US has all sorts of very effective countermeasures, but they also will only let such activities go so far.
Clearly, the closer and closer a sub comes, the more sure a shot is, and the more significant the damage could be.
My guess is that the PLAN sub kept pressing and the US decided it was enough.
But that is from my own source, whom I know well, and who is active with the US Navy and was in the vicinity at the time. That's as much as I will say and it is up to you to believe it or not.
I would hope that the Chinese, in this particular set of circumstances would not repeat anything as aggressive. Just watch the exercises from a distance and gather as much intel as you can is my advise.
Considering the fact that these sorts of "games" go on all the time and have for decades, as the American commander, do you want to be the guy to shoot? Sure, the sub is too close to the carrier. But it's probably not going to fire. Even if it did, it would surely be sunk. On the other hand, if you fire first, you've started a war possibly. Over a particularly rough game of "Blind Man's Bluff" as they call it. And what exactly do you mean by "force the sub to the surface"? You can ping the hell out of it with sonar, but nothing can bring that sub to the surface unless its captain says so. And we don't even know how close that sub was to the Kitty Hawk in reality. Maybe it was a few hundred yards away, maybe miles. There's no video of the incident. Just articles that say it was "close".
This argument has been done to death. There's just not enough information to make a judgement either way. However I will say that the PLAN showed some real skill in being able to vector a slower diesel electric sub right into the vicinity (and apparently firing range) of an American CBG out in the open ocean. Just finding the Kitty Hawk and putting that sub in its path shows skill.
My point here is that this is relevant to the larger question of the exercises. China might not like it that the US and Japan conduct drills, but there's not much they can do about it. The US and Japan might not like it that China and Russia harass their drills with aircraft and subs or whatever, but there's not much they can do about it. In peacetime on the high seas and in the skies, there's not much more you can do beyond sonar pings, radar locks and angry staring. I know I guy who used to fly P-3s out of Subic Bay in the 80s. He frequently flew along the coast of Vietnam and China. He was routinely intercepted by Vietnamese, Chinese and Soviet pilots (out of Cam Ranh Bay). They would usually come alongside his P-3, they'd wave at each other, and fly alongside each other for a while before parting ways. To the pilots this was all very routine.
Ok let's move on I don't want this to be another Kitty Hawk incident thread.
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Roger604
Senior Member
This incident is part of a larger trend of Russian assertive actions. In response to NATO's decision to deploy missile defense and other military assets in Eastern Europe and recent decision to encourage Ukraine and Georgia's membership in the alliance, Russia has become more assertive. Russia's plan to build a new naval base in the disputed Southern Kurils and its deployment of new missiles against Eastern Europe is part of this trend. Just as important is Russia's subtle engagement of Pakistan, a US ally. If Pakistan is brought into the fold of the SCO, that could possibly link up with Iran in the future and then SCO would stretch across nearly the whole of Asia. A clear geographical line can be drawn between the SCO and various island nations / other peripheral Asian nations allied with the US.
EDIATH
Junior Member
Observe & learn, that's what to do.
Having said that, I believe cold-war-style joint exercises (especially on this scale) might be detrimental towards confidence building among regional powers. Would it be more convincing to show that the exercise wasn't aiming at containing China by inviting PLAN officers to observe it? The same goes for PLAN exercises in the Western Pacific. It is to the interest of all regional stakeholders to improve mutual understanding, let's face it, a bunch of tough-line politics are based on presumptions made about one another. Is US truly devoted to the nearly impossible mission of containing China? Has China taken the option of striking at US military bases in Japan as a countermeasure? This kind of issues are still being debated within governments as well as the concerning public, the ever increasing mistrust will eventuate into unfavorable outcomes for those matters.
By the way it's equally unwise to presure China on condemning NK, a long time ally of the country (perhaps still with supporters within the Chinese government). China normally prefers negotiations behind the door to steer events, all those diplomatic efforts since the shelling incident aren't for nothing. To demand China openly condeming NK thus changing their normal stance might have the opposite effect.
Having said that, I believe cold-war-style joint exercises (especially on this scale) might be detrimental towards confidence building among regional powers. Would it be more convincing to show that the exercise wasn't aiming at containing China by inviting PLAN officers to observe it? The same goes for PLAN exercises in the Western Pacific. It is to the interest of all regional stakeholders to improve mutual understanding, let's face it, a bunch of tough-line politics are based on presumptions made about one another. Is US truly devoted to the nearly impossible mission of containing China? Has China taken the option of striking at US military bases in Japan as a countermeasure? This kind of issues are still being debated within governments as well as the concerning public, the ever increasing mistrust will eventuate into unfavorable outcomes for those matters.
By the way it's equally unwise to presure China on condemning NK, a long time ally of the country (perhaps still with supporters within the Chinese government). China normally prefers negotiations behind the door to steer events, all those diplomatic efforts since the shelling incident aren't for nothing. To demand China openly condeming NK thus changing their normal stance might have the opposite effect.
MwRYum
Major
Y'know, Cold War never died out in Asia. Soviet Union is gone but US swing the gun barrel down at China just as quick. But unlike Soviet Union, amid all the provocations China has little to fight back, or years away from having the capability to tell the West to back off.
China needs to protest because this cuts too close to its home waters. As if being named as the aggressor ain't enough, at this range, not only China North Sea Fleet is within strike radius, same goes for China's political and key industrial capitals as well.
Don't know if that'd have impact on next year's China defense budget, but if they do, I bet on the defense-related stock will get another boost.