U.S. planes and warships have not challenged China’s claim to sovereignty over disputed and man-made islands in the South China Sea since 2012, and a key lawmaker wants that to change.
Sen. John McCain’s demand for a more aggressive U.S. response to Chinese claims comes as the White House prepares to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sept. 25.
At a hearing Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman became upset when David Shear, assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, said U.S. forces had not operated within 12 miles of the disputed territory since 2012.
Shear said the administration is putting together an approach to challenging China’s claim, which the United States does not recognize, and that “freedom of navigation” exercises by U.S. naval forces would be a part of that approach.
“It seems to me we ought to do it,” McCain said, noting that the best way to show the U.S. does not recognize that the islands belong to China is to sail by them or fly over them.
“We haven’t done that since 2012. I don’t find that acceptable, Mr. Secretary. With all the other tools you have in the toolbox the most visible assertion of freedom of the seas is to peacefully sail inside the 12-mile limit of artificial islands, which in any version of international law is not allowed to be sovereign territory of any nation.”
China’s aggressive actions to claim water and airspace hundreds of miles from its coast has turned the South China and the East China seas into global flash points and greatly enhanced the risk of regional conflict in eastern Asia. Neighboring countries, some of which are key U.S. allies, have pushed back against Beijing’s moves, raising the risk that Washington may get dragged into any conflict.
Countries in the region are alarmed by China’s work to build artificial islands on reefs occupied by its forces as part of what U.S. Pacific Command Chief Adm. Harry Harris has called a “Great Wall of Sand.” And they are looking to Washington to help stop it.
“The South China Sea is no more China’s than the Gulf of Mexico is Mexico’s,” Harris told McCain. “I think that we must exercise our freedom of navigation throughout the region.”
He said President Obama and Defense Secretary Ash Carter are considering options for doing that.
“We have steadfastly encouraged China to engage with other countries in that region to … find a diplomatic resolution” to the territorial disputes, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Friday.
“We’ve indicated that it’s important for these kind of results to be resolved diplomatically among the parties that are involved directly.”
In May, the Pentagon took the unusual step of allowing a CNN crew aboard a Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol plane as it flew near the islands.
Declassified video aired by CNN shows that China has made significant progress in expanding by about 2,000 acres and fortifying what used to be coral reefs in the contested Spratly Islands, hundreds of miles from its coastline. Among the features that can be seen are a runway capable of handling any Chinese military aircraft, early warning radar and a deep-water harbor capable of sheltering warships, which could also be seen steaming nearby.
“You see here the landing strip on the backside there, the taxiway that they’re building. This has come hundreds of meters in the past couple months,” one of the Navy crew members says in the video, later released by the Navy. “You’ve got facilities on concrete, manufacturing facilities to produce a lot of the structures they have on the island. They have dredgers active that will take land from the ocean and pile it up to build more land. There’s a whole lot going on to build this land up in order to make more area for structures.”
