 |
| Image: Flickr User - Greg Bishop |
By Sean P. Henseler
With its recent FONOP, Washington has only muddied the waters.
Last week, after months of public debate, the U.S. Navy finally conducted a Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP) in the South China Sea (SCS) when the USS Lassen sailed within 12 nautical miles (nm) of Subi Reef, a low tide elevation located hundreds of miles from the Chinese mainland and one of seven massive land reclamation projects undertaken by China since late December 2013.
Ostensibly, the purpose of the FONOP was to visibly assert the U.S. government’s stated vital interest in ensuring freedom of navigation around the globe in accordance with international law. For months senior officials repeatedly stated that U.S. military forces would “fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows…and the South China Sea will not be an exception.”
However, according to multiple press reports, the USS Lassen was exercising its rights of “innocent passage” during the FONOP. If so, then the U.S. succeeded in further muddying the waters in the ongoing saga that surrounds China’s ambiguous claims in the SCS and may have unintentionally signaled that Subi Reef is an island deserving of territorial seas, national airspace, and 200 nm Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
Read the full story at The Diplomat