China claims today it “drove away” the USS Benfold near the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, an area claimed as sovereign waterways of China. China received the final ruling on freedom of navigation in international waters in the South China Sea July 12, 2012 when the Hagues’s International Court of Arbitration ruled that freedom of navigation supersedes China’s claims to territorial waters. “The USS Benfold entered the waters of the Paracels without approval of the Chinese government, seriously violating China’s sovereignty and undermining the stability of the South China Sea,” said the Peoples Liberation Army [PLA] Southern Command said. China, of course, has no legal claim to international waters outside a 12-mile range to its coastline, despite issuing a warning to the U.S. navy. China continues to bully and intimidate its Southeast Asian neighbors, including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Philippines.
U.S. navy officials dispute China’s claims to territorial waters outside the 12-mile limit, prompting the Navy to respond to China’s provocations. “We urge the United States to immediately stop such provocative actions,” said the U.S. Southern Theater Command in a statement. Whether the USS Benfold changed course due to Chinese actions is anyone’s guess. What’s known for sure is that 78-year-old President Joe Biden and 58-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken are testing the limits sending U.S. warships through the disputed South China Sea. Whatever ruling was reached July 12, 2016 at the Hague, it doesn’t mean it’s enforceable, since China ignored the ruling. U.S. navy insists that all ships have the right of “innocent passage” in international waters, something China refuses to acknowledge. To Biden and Blinken, and Trump before them, the U.S. won’t be intimidated by Red China.
Freedom of navigation for all countries was confirmed July 12, 2016 at the Hague, prompting China to ignore the ruling. “The operation reflects our commitment to uphold freedom of navigation and lawful uses of the seas as a principle,” said the Southern Command. U.S. officials refuse acquiesce because of China’s bullying, putting China on notice that the U.S. will continue to sail its warships anywhere on the planet where it’s legal to do so. “The United States will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, as USS Benfold did here. Nothing the PRC [Peoples Republic of China] says otherwise will deter us,” throwing down the gauntlet to China. Biden and Blinken has dug a line in the sand daring the PRC to take any military action to thwart U.S. freedom of navigation. So far, China hasn’t fired on any U.S. ships sailing through the disputed South China Sea.
U.S. navy speaks for Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Indonesia and Malyasia who want to avoid any conflict with China. China seized the Paracels AKA the Xisha for China in the 1970s, some 220 miles [350 KM] from Hainan Island, another sovereign Chinese territory. When a U.S. EP-3E surveillance plane with 24 crew members flew too close to Hainan Island April 1, 2001, China’s air force forced down the plane with 24 U.S. crew. China kept 24-crerw hostage for 10-days before releasing them from the island prison. China returned the EP-3E one-month later, dismantled and reverse engineered all happening on former President George W. Bush’s watch. Little did Bush know what would happen Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden flew jetliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Bush and his Vice President Dick Cheney did nothing to retaliate against China.
China flew a record number of bombers and combat jets over the Taiwan Strait April 13 in a breach of Taiwan airspace, asserting their domination over the independent island nation from Beijing. China insists that the U.S. and European Union do not recognize the independence of Taiwan, despite the island of Formosa surviving with U.S. help since the 1949 Maoist Revolution. While the U.S. and EU capitulate to China’s demand of sovereignty over Taiwan, they treat Taiwan as a separate nation from their Chinese Communist counterparts. China continues to intimidate Taiwan, a major bone of contention for the Blinken State Department. Biden and Blinken want China to let independent territories like Taiwan and Hong Kong to pursue autonomy, despite knowing Beijing controls the sovereignty over both states. Blinken wants China to abide by the rules-based global system.
Blinken put Beijing on notice that the U.S. intends to make good on its obligations under the 1951 Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty, knowing that any attack on the Philippines would be defended by the U.S. “The Peoples Republic of China [PRC] continues to coerce and intimidate Southeast Asian coastal states, threatening freedom of navigation in this critical global throughway,” Blinken said. “Nowhere is the rules-based maritime order under greater threat that in the South China Sea,” Blinken said, that the U.S. has no intent of backing down. When you consider the other spats Biden and Blinken have with China, they pale in comparison to China’s bullying on freedom of navigation. Chinese President Xi Jinping has been fighting on many fronts, especially covering up the origin in a Wuhan Institute of Virology lab, the origin of the deadly novel coronavirus
