US unbowed on spying off China's coast
US vows to continue spying missions off China's coast;
No let-up in naval surveillance that Beijing calls 'major obstacle'

Greg Torode

US naval commanders have vowed to continue surveillance in parts of the South China Sea claimed by China as its exclusive economic zone, despite a new warning from Beijing that such activity represents a "major obstacle" to improved military relations.

Rear Admiral Kevin Donegan, commander of the US navy's Seventh Fleet battle force, based in Japan, said the US would continue to patrol "international waters" of the South China Sea, saying this was vital to the freedom of trade routes.

When asked specifically about the future operation of oceanographic and surveillance ships, such as the USNS Impeccable, that China has previously attempted to stop in the disputed areas of the South China Sea, he said: "Absolutely, we will continue to operate in international waters.  We will operate in areas that we're allowed to operate in."

The definition of international waters, he said, was "pretty well defined by the international community and by international laws. We will not infringe on other people's territorial seas."

He said he did not want to comment on surveillance work specifically, but expressed fresh concern about China's "unprecedented" military build-up and said it was important for the stability of the region that the US and other regional nations better understood Beijing's intentions.

Issuing a plea for greater co-operation and exchanges with the PLA, Donegan said recent improvements in communication were positive but more work would be needed to limit the risk of future misunderstanding. Donegan was talking in Hong Kong on Friday during a port visit by the aircraft carrier USS George Washington and support ships - a day after the end of a week-long visit to Washington by second-ranking PLA officer General Xu Caihou .

In meetings with US Defence Secretary Dr Robert Gates at the Pentagon, Xu agreed to seven steps towards what Washington hopes will be steadier military relations, but also highlighted four "major obstacles" - US military support for Taiwan, the presence of US surveillance ships in waters Beijing considers part of its exclusive economic zone, a lack of mutual trust and legal barriers for mutual exchanges.

Tensions are growing in the South China Sea as China increases submarine patrols from a new base on Hainan Island which the US navy and other claimants to the sea, such as Vietnam, are watching intently.

Despite having long stayed on the sidelines of South China Sea disputes, Washington is watching the area more closely, having voiced concerns over China's pressuring of US oil firms involved in oil exploration with the Philippines and Vietnam. Both Vietnam and China claim the sea's Paracel and Spratly islands in their entirety, while Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei lay claim to parts of the Spratlys.

Potentially rich in oil and gas deposits, these islands lie on shipping lanes between Europe and Asia along which much of China's and Japan's oil supplies pass. China formalised its claim to much of the sea earlier this year under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea - claiming an area with borders close to the expansive "historic line" shown on People's Liberation Army naval charts.

Even while US officials such as Donegan avoid getting involved in territorial disputes - calling only for eventual peaceful, political solutions - his comments do highlight stark differences in interpretation between the US and China.

The US and other regional powers believe that unauthorised fishing or exploitation of the seabed is prohibited within a state's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) but that it remains open to all other regular foreign commercial and military traffic - including routine surveillance work - meaning such zones can effectively be viewed as "international waters". Both the Soviet Union and the US regularly carried out surveillance within each other's EEZs during the cold war, for example.

China, however, is determined to limit surveillance operations, as Xu made clear last week.

Military analysts and diplomats believe the situation could degenerate over the next 18 months or so as China launches eight new submarines capable of carrying intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The US can be expected to deploy slow-moving surveillance ships such as the Impeccable, which tow powerful underwater sonar equipment, to gather information on individual submarines and to help its own submarine operations.

The unarmed Impeccable was confronted by Chinese civilian ships in March and forced to stop briefly as it attempted to leave waters between Hainan and Vietnam. The Pentagon later sent a warship to the area. "Hainan is vital for China to get its submarines out discreetly into the Pacific," said an Asian military attaché. "The US knows this and wants to develop a "sonar signature" for every Chinese submarine. So the race is on."

A senior Pentagon official told the US Congress recently that "as the PLA has upgraded its facilities on Hainan Island, for example, we see a direct correlation with [Chinese] assertiveness in its reaction to the US surface and air activity".

Professor Carl Thayer, a regional analyst at the Australian Defence Force Academy, said there was little sign of either side backing down in the short term. "We can see the US taking a stick-and-carrot approach to China over its rights in the South China Sea," he said. "But China is clever with its objections. It has put the US on notice and Washington will have to think harder about when and how it carries out its surveillance."