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| A Chinese fighter jet during an allegedly "dangerous" intercept of a US surveillance plane in August 2014. |
By Mark J. Valencia
Hailed as “groundbreaking,” the new rules fail to address fundamental differences.
The new U.S.-China agreed rules for military air-to-air encounters are being hailed in some quarters as “ground-breaking” and a “milestone.” But like their 2014 agreement on safe military encounters at sea, this “annex” does not address the fundamental differences that give rise to these encounters .
The agreement was driven by a litany of “dangerous” incidents. Indeed, the U.S.-China relationship was strained by the EP-3 (2001), the Bowditch (2001), the Impeccable(2009), and Cowpens (2013) incidents. More recently, in August 2014 and again in September 2015, Chinese jet fighters intercepted U.S. intelligence-gathering aircraft over the South China and Yellow Seas. These incidents all involved Chinese challenges to U.S. Naval intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) vessels and aircraft operating off China’s coast.
Clearly, the U.S. “rebalancing” to Asia is coming face to face with China’s naval expansion and rising ambitions. Indeed the two have converging strategic trajectories. China is developing what the U.S. calls an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy that is designed to control China’s “near seas” and prevent access to them by the U.S. in the event of a conflict.
The U.S. response is the Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons (JAM-GC) which is intended to cripple China’s command, control, communications, computer and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems (C4 ISR). This means that C4 ISR is the “tip of the spear” for both sides, and both are trying to dominate this sphere over, on and under China’s near seas. Indeed, this is where their national security interests collide.
Read the full story at The Diplomat