China Calls Foul on US Navy Activities

Chinese news is accusing the United States Navy of breaking the law, Reuters is reporting.

An unnamed spokesman from the Chinese embassy in Washington denied the Chinese ships had violated maritime rules, and said U.S. ships had been conducting illegal surveying, the website of Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television (news.ifeng.com) reported.

"The U.S. claim about operating in high seas is out of step with the facts," the report quoted the spokesman as saying. "The U.S. navy vessel concerned has been consistently conducting illegal surveying in China's special economic zone," the station quoted the spokesman as saying.

"China believes this contravenes international laws of the sea and China's relevant laws."

Chinese authorities had "repeatedly used diplomatic channels to demand that the U.S. side cease unlawful activities in China's special economic zone," the report added.

How does this stack up with the facts as disclosed to date. This comes from MSNBC's First Take.

"Coastal states do not have a right under international law to regulate foreign military activities in the EEZ,” Major Stewart Upton said in a written statement. “The unprofessional maneuvers by Chinese vessels violated the requirement under international law to operate with due regard for the rights and safety of other lawful users of the ocean. We expect Chinese ships to act responsibly and refrain from provocative activities that could lead to miscalculation or a collision at sea, endangering vessels and the lives of U.S. and Chinese mariners."

The Navy.mil website caption of this photo says:

A crewmember on a Chinese trawler uses a grapple hook in an apparent attempt to snag the towed acoustic array of the military Sealift Command ocean surveillance ship USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS-23). Impeccable was conducting routine survey operations in international waters 75 miles south of Hainan Island when it was harassed by five Chinese vessels.

Article 40 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea covers Research and survey activities, and says:

During transit passage, foreign ships, including marine scientific research and hydrographic survey ships, may not carry out any research or survey activities without the prior authorization of the States bordering straits.

Does that even apply in this case?

The official statement from White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told a news conference:

"Our ships operate fairly regularly in international waters where these incidents took place. We are going to continue to operate in those international waters and we expect the Chinese to observe international laws around them"

RAW DATA at Foxnews states it is quoting a DoD press release when it says:

Coastal states do not have a right under international law to regulate foreign military activities in the EEZ. The unprofessional maneuvers by Chinese vessels violated the requirement under international law to operate with due regard for the rights and safety of other lawful users of the ocean. We expect Chinese ships to act responsibly and refrain from provocative activities that could lead to miscalculation or a collision at sea, endangering vessels and the lives of U.S. and Chinese mariners.

I am not a lawyer, but it looks to me like China was well within their right to ask the ship to leave or cease ocean surveys depending upon where the ship was. That does not mean they had the right to harass the ships with trawlers though, because that looks a lot like privateer activity. If Vietnam gave the US Navy permission to conduct ocean surveys, it is moot because the seas reported to be about 75 miles south of Hainan Island are contested EEZ for Vietnam.

That picture caption on Navy.mil appears to be the source of the legitimate Chinese complaint. The United States is not signatory of the UNCLOS, but may be eventually, and more to the point use the UNCLOS as accepted international law nonetheless.

The pictures on Navy.mil are very important for China observers though, quite revealing actually, and much more important than any diplomatic nonsense that spills out of this incident. Examining those pictures and what we are learning here is obviously a complicated topic, and the details outside the law are better examined more thoroughly in another post.

While the United States may or may not be in good standing with the law at this moment, further details revealed will ultimately decide. Like all things, early reports can be misleading, although I still say it is funny as hell the first report from the AP focused on the Chinese sailors in underwear, which gave us this classic comedy from Danger Room. That picture is hilarious. Underwear Barons of the South China Sea... indeed!