Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.
 U.S. vessel near China |
China recently has increased its deployment of ships to the South China Sea ostensibly to protect its “exclusive” economic zones. However, the real reason may be to keep the United States from spying on its increased nuclear submarine buildup, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
In recent months, China has added patrols in the South China Sea, using possibly armed fishing vessels to protect its interests in disputed areas.
“China will make the best use of its naval ships and may also build more fishery patrol ships, depending on the need,” said Wu Zhuang, director of the Administration of Fishery and Fishing Harbor Supervision of the South China Sea.
“Faced with a growing amount of illegal fishing and other countries’ unfounded territorial claims of islands in China’s exclusive economic zone, it has become necessary to step up the fishery administration’s patrols to protect China’s rights and interests,” Wu added.
Wu made the comments after five Chinese naval boats harassed an unarmed U.S. surveillance ship some 72 miles off southern Chinese Hainan Island. China accused the U.S. ship of spying. In response, the U.S. sent more Navy vessels into the region to protect surveillance ships.
Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.
U.S. Admiral Timothy Keating called Beijing’s actions “illegal and aggressive” since the encounter occurred in international waters. He expressed bewilderment over China’s actions, claiming they did not fit with China’s recent anti-piracy operations near Somalia in cooperation with other western countries and Japan.
The incident was “certainly a troubling indicator that China, particularly in the South China Sea, is behaving in an aggressive, troublesome manner, and they’re not willing to abide by acceptable standards of behavior or rules of the road,” Keating said.
In intercepting the U.S. surveillance ship, China had dispatched its most advanced fishery patrol ship, the Yuzheng 311, to waters around the Spratly Islands to enforce what it perceives are its rights against Philippine claims over oil there.
In 1996, the Chinese Navy had a shoot-out with a Philippine gunboat in the South China Sea. Then in 1998 the Philippine Navy arrested Chinese fishermen off of Scarborough Shoal near the Philippines.
In recent years, China has focused on the development of its navy to protect what it perceives as its area of economic interest over conflicting oil claims in the region, which include Hainan Island, the Spratleys and all of the South China Sea.
China clearly is the dominant naval power there, but it is concerned and holds sacred the shipping lanes by which it receives oil and other strategic resources.
China will enhance its navy in the years to come to protect its sources of strategic resources, especially from the Middle East, Africa and Latin America while enhancing its navy for its projection of force.
China already is working on another aircraft carrier or two, although it doesn’t want to admit it. And it is building lesser vessels to form what amounts to future carrier task forces.
While force projection and protection of routes that bring valuable strategic resources back to China are considerations, there is mounting Chinese military concern over what it calls U.S. spying.
“This is about the Chinese wanting to stop the U.S. ‘spying’ in waters that are close to China, not so much an attempt by China to extend its naval reach but to deny access to the U.S. Navy of Chinese coastal waters,” said Craig Snyder of Australia’s Deakin University. “Yes, the Chinese ultimately want to exercise sea control or at least sea denial throughout the South China Sea, but at this point they simply want to make the Americans think twice when operating in and around Chinese waters.”
The U.S. has good reason to enhance spying in the region.
The Chinese apparently have a number of underwater submarine tunnels into Hainan Island, several miles from a Chinese naval facility at Yulin. Hainan Island is looked on as part of a Chinese “string of pearls” strategy as a 2005 Pentagon report described to control sea lanes from the Persian Gulf to Northeast Asia.
For the complete report and full immediate access to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, subscribe now.
