Yet Another Twist to the Kitty Hawk Incident

The Hong Kong based Ming Pao daily is now speculating along the same lines I did yesterday, specifically the snub to the Kitty Hawk had something to do with the Chinese Navy exercises. From the Taipei Times:

Another explanation was offered by the Hong Kong-based Ming Pao daily, which said the Chinese snub was connected to a large-scale military exercise recently conducted by the Chinese Navy's Eastern and Southern Fleet in an area of the Pacific Ocean east of Taiwan and north of the Philippines.

The exercise was a drill for blockading Taiwan, it said.

"Sources ... said that during the exercise some Chinese ships ran into the Kitty Hawk's battle group in international waters sailing toward Hong Kong," an online version of the Ming Pao article said.

By refusing to allow the Kitty Hawk into Hong Kong, China "wanted to hide the details of their naval exercises and combat capability" to blockade the Taiwan Strait as part of a military attack on Taiwan, the newspaper said.

Dear President Bush, the explanation that this was simply a "misunderstanding" isn't good enough, not for the Navy, and not for me. The White House needs to do better, leaving the issue at "misunderstanding" is a slap in the face to the Navy and this nation. This country has no use at all for a President who is unwilling to stand up for our nations armed services serving over seas. This administration acts tough towards Iran, then loses its voice when it comes to China.

Did you notice something new in the press report? I did, this is not a typical PLAN exercise, in fact this is one of the first I have heard about that includes two different fleets in China, in this case both Eastern and Southern Fleets. That is a big deal, at least to people who observe such things like me. The speculation that this exercise would be for "blockading Taiwan" appears absolutely correct, as in such a case both fleets would have to operate together while the Northern Fleet sortied to set up for potential US Navy response.

Feng noted it in his original post and I didn't note it, clearly the quality here is in decline.

However, in trying to recapture the quality expected from our readers, we worked double time today pulling better information of the event, reviewing such trivial details as weather patterns and the details as reported. Note a few things. The Kitty Hawk was 300 miles away from Hong Kong when China finally allowed the Strike Group to return. According to my maps, that put the Strike Group South Southwest of Taiwan, with a choice to make...

Sail directly into bad weather, or take the short route through the Strait of Taiwan. According to the weather data we pulled, the storm was pretty nasty, and the storm that hit the 2 minesweepers earlier in the week was no picnic. We are hearing the Kitty Hawk sailed north through the Strait of Taiwan.

Which no doubt has pissed off China even more, they still talk about the incident in 2000 as the biggest threat their nation has faced in the last decade. My opinion, too bad for them, thousands of commercial ships cross the Formosa Strait a year, and had one of the Kitty Hawk CSG escorts sailed into the storm after being denied access to Hong Kong and been damaged, this wouldn't be a few bloggers complaining about an administration failing to stick up for American sailors, rather this would be an international incident.

Bill Arkin has a great quote from Admiral Keating:

The minesweeper incident, "causes us a little more concern," Keating said. "[T]his is a kind of an unwritten law among seamen that if someone is in need, regardless of genus, phylum or species, you let them come in; you give them safe harbor. Jimmy Buffett has songs about it, for crying out loud."

Arkin assumes that because Keating hasn't spoken to the Chinese that the Navy sees this as a non-issue. I disagree. When an Admiral makes a Jimmy Buffet reference, I'd say he is trying to get the attention of a broader audience. In all of the media coverage I have read, Roughead is clearly pissed off, and he should be.

The TV media has been remarkably silent on this issue, and the Pentagon appears to be incredibly clueless as to what actually happened. I hope the media bloggers who have been telling the story don't let it pass by easily, because if China was following a blueprint to harm military relations between the US and China, this would be one possible scenario. As I noted a few weeks ago, that trip by Gates to China was a complete failure, he is doing a great job handling the irregular war stuff, but if it at the expense of the big stuff someone over in the Pentagon is missing the point.