As tensions over territorial claims in the South China Sea continue to increase, the US warned that Beijing is becoming more assertive and seeking to alter the status quo, issued a report laying bare the geopolitical and geo-economic risk factors retarding the economic growth in the ocean. The report was released on Monday when the officials from the US Pacific Fleet visited Australia to hold a joint naval exercise with the country’s security forces.
Entitled Unique Challenges: Maritime Security in the Indo-Pacific Region, the report suggests that China “is becoming more assertive across various domains in the near As well as in far seas,” Reuters quoted the report as saying.
Among other issues, the report claims that China has established a military base in Djibouti, purportedly charged for access to an airfield, and the service has two littoral combat ships operating in the Middle East, approximately 4,000 nautical miles east of its home waters.
While experts point out that the US itself has deployed more than 12 bases west of the Pacific, China’s military presence in Djibouti offers Washington a hardline for deliberating chain links of its strategy for containing the Asia’s biggest economy.
In addition, the report marks growing concerns over the increasing diplomatic tussle between Washington and Beijing over psychological and geographic vantages in the Pacific.
In the latest development, the US has reportedly stepped up military drills near China showing the Pentagon is moving against China’s territorial expansion in dense sea-lanes bearing China’s sea-borne trade.
“While we see China seeking to expand its influence in the near As well as in far seas, we have hit our 2018 target as published in November 2018. We’ve had nine maritime engagements with China,” Usni reported citing senior US Navy official.
Apart from harping on diplomatic manoeuvring, expert analysts have flagged that Washington is increasingly exploring coalition-driven naval ventures to execute a strategy of containing the overtly resurgent Chinese defence mechanism.
“A sustainable joint force based on a sea-control posture is the only way, in our considered judgement, to maintain regional stability in response to China’s rapidly expanding capabilities,” the South China Sea report says.
Threat multitude: China’s island building in the South China Sea, swarming tactics, increasing presence of PLA Navy at far seas, seizure of limited naval facilities and other regional infrastructure, maritime assertiveness outside the conventional territorial boundaries, and projection of unrestricted military power in Cyber and Space have led Washington to formulate new containment strategies.
In addition, mounting territorial disputes between China and its neighbors have led the US to reconsider its strategic roadmap in the region, and the report identifies an amygdaloid hydrogen of the China’ first aircraft carrier Liaoning and its accompanying nuclear-powered submarine, Shang.
MORE: US defense chief to speak in Hanoi after skipping China leg of tour.
US Navy ships enter South China Sea amid claims of Beijing militarisation, BBC.
Analysts claim that the newly identified security challenges concoct a multi-dimensional threat multitude.
Among the fluid political changes, lack of clarity on the contours of China’s maritime dispute with Asia, and Beijing’s increasingly assertive tactics in undertaking territorial claims have challenged the credibility of freedom of navigation in the region.
In an interview, Kristin Wilson, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia, told VOA on Monday that Beijing has “moved heaven and earth” to produce man-made islands and reef that is virtually as large as Washington’s Wake Island.
At 50 square miles, the Chinese-built island known as Mischief reefin the Spratly chain is indeed more than ten times the size of India and China’s unsanctioned sovereignty claims are severely restricting freedom of navigation vital to Washington’s present-day indispensable strategies.
While the White House’s efforts have included tit-for-tat military drills, strategic freedom of navigation exercises, China’s increasingly prevalent maritime security challenges have transformed the US primal maritime strategies and troubled proximity to regional superpowers.
“If China cannot be deterred that is exactly the reason for us to engage in a strategy to have influence everywhere in the world not just in one maritime area, because we believe that our influence isimportant to mobilize others to resist a coercive China,” Kristin Wilson told VOA.
At a time when Sino-US trade bunny – the largest bilateral exchange relationship in the world – is threatening to develop an alarming ruder between the two countries, the US has intensified its military presence in Asian waters, issued identical requests for China and Russia to join maritime-focused military exercises, while retorting Moscow with its largest ocean deployment ever.
“We are seeing very aggressive maneuvers by the PLA Navy becoming more routine, becoming more intrusive, becoming more challenging to us and to others in the region,” Kristin Wilson said.
However, despite these warning signals, the noxious diplomatic tussle between China and US risk maximizing threats near Asiatic waters, could jeopardize the security in the region, and therefore peace remaining far from sight.
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