War Danger Grows Following New US Provocation in South China Sea
By James Cogan
Global Research
May 11, 2016
On Tuesday, in an open military provocation, the Obama administration authorised the US Navy to send a guided-missile destroyer into the 12-nautical-mile territorial zone surrounding Chinese-held Fiery Cross Reef, located in the Spratly Island chain in the South China Sea. The operation was carried out on the fraudulent pretext of “freedom of navigation”—that is, the assertion by US imperialism that it has the right to send its military forces anywhere it chooses, at any time, in Chinese-claimed waters.
Yesterday’s action achieved its real aim of ratcheting up military tensions in the Asia-Pacific. The Chinese military responded by scrambling at least two J-11 fighter jets. Chinese pilots reportedly issued warnings to the American destroyer, the USS William P. Lawrence, to leave Chinese territory or face engagement. The Chinese Navy dispatched three warships, but there have been no reports that the rival vessels came into contact.
These developments represent a sharp escalation. The US Navy carried out a “freedom of navigation” mission last October in Chinese-claimed waters around Subi Reef in the South China Sea and a second operation in January, near Triton Island in the Paracel Island chain. On those occasions, China did not react militarily but issued strongly-worded diplomatic protests. The response to the intrusion near Fiery Cross Reef indicates that, from this point on, US provocations will be engaged by Chinese forces, posing the danger of a military clash.
Fiery Cross Reef is one of the most sensitive of all the disputed territories. It has been held by China since 1988, but is still claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan. Tensions have grown since 2011 as a result of the US “pivot to Asia” and Washington’s development of closer military ties with Vietnam and the Philippines.
In 2014, China deployed several hundred troops to the reef and initiated a major project to reclaim land from the sea and turn it into a small artificial island. It has built a port and a 3,300-metre airfield—the most southern airfield controlled by Beijing. In January 2016, civilian airliners successfully landed on the reef and it is now regularly used by Chinese military aircraft.
The message from Washington sent by yesterday’s operation is clear. US imperialism will continue to stoke up long-standing, competing claims over territory in the South China Sea to militarily encircle and destabilise the Chinese regime. The objective of the US ruling elite is not only to assert military dominance in Asia, but to intimidate Beijing into pulling back from its ambitions to exert greater global influence and compel it to make sweeping concessions to American demands on trade and access to Chinese markets. If Beijing nevertheless continues to assert the regional and global interests of the Chinese business oligarchs it represents, it will face war.
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