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| Image: Flickr User - Official U.S. Navy Page |
By Sam Bateman
It’s not exactly clear just what Washington is protesting with this deliberate provocation.
Strong calls continue to be made in Washington for the U.S. Navy to increase its freedom of navigation (FON) activities in the South China Sea. This is despite apparent differences of view between the Pentagon and the White House about the wisdom of such action.
The United States has done little in 2015 to ease concerns about whether it knows what it’s doing in the South China Sea. If anything, the rhetoric coming out of the Pentagon, and the U.S. Navy in particular, has become stronger.
While extensive land reclamations in the South China Sea have not helped China’s image, none of its current actions justify deliberate provocations by the United States. It’s not clear just what Washington is protesting in the South China Sea. There are three possibilities, some or all of which may apply.
One explanation may be that the United States is protesting against China’s claim to sovereignty over disputed features. But Washington has repeatedly said that it doesn’t take sides in the island disputes. An authoritative report [PDF] last year from the Center for Naval Analyses in Washington concluded that “[t]he absence of an unambiguous legal case in any of these disputes reinforces the wisdom of the U.S. policy of not taking a position regarding which country’s sovereignty claim is superior.”
But FON operations against only China’s claims suggest that the United States has taken sides. Washington hotly denies this, but it is how people in the streets of Beijing, Hanoi and Manila see U.S. actions. Resulting surges in nationalism in these capitals are not helpful for resolving the disputes.
Read the full story at The Diplomat