Observing the Incidents Off the Chinese Coast

In the maritime domain, China is best seen as primarily seeking to extend and consolidate its sovereignty, rather than to protect its sovereignty per se, since the likelihood of invasion from the sea probably approaches zero. Its strategy is two-pronged. First, China is actively attempting to extend its authority in areas already under its jurisdiction by recasting the traditional relationship between coastal states and the international community and pressing for enhanced coastal state jurisdiction over traditional international freedoms in coastal waters and air space. Second, China has many claims over islands and sea space that are actively disputed by its neighbors. China is consolidating and defending its historical claims to islands in the East and South China Seas and to the maritime zones that will accrue to whoever gains undisputed sovereignty over them.

Many of the activities necessary to develop and consolidate these claims are non-military—or at least non-coercive--in nature; they rely on the use of all instruments of China’s national power, including deft diplomacy, prolific track two academic activities, disciplined information management, and others. That said, there is a clear military component in this ‘non-coercive’ aspect of China’s efforts to expand and consolidate its control over its maritime periphery. Several articles in recent issues of the daily newspaper published by People’s Liberation Army Navy, Renmin Haijun [People’s Navy], for instance, have described the Chinese perspective on three ‘new’ types of modern warfare: Legal Warfare, Psychological Warfare, and Public Opinion Warfare. The focus of each of these activities is fundamentally to create and to advance international and domestic legitimacy for China’s viewpoint of its sovereign authority. In the author’s words, Legal Warriors must “be far-sighted…to discern any problems before they actually arise,” in order to “provide a legal pretext for military action,” and to “engage in legal contests to vie for the legal initiative” in order to “safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity.” There is, of course, in addition to the Legal Warfare also a traditional military component to China’s sovereignty extension and consolidation strategy (“When reason fails and there are legitimate grounds, categorically adopt unyielding military means.”) It is this blend of coercive and persuasive capacity that appears to underpin China’s approach to consolidating and expanding its sovereign maritime interests.

The statements above put into context the activities observed over the last week off the coast of China, and is part of testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission regarding China’s Views of Sovereignty and Methods of Access Control given by Peter A. Dutton, Associate Professor, China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College on February 27, 2008... over a year ago. The entire testimony is brilliant analysis that gives context to China's activities and strategy. It will be difficult for anyone to offer analysis of the intentions demonstrated by China in this latest incident better than Professor Dutton's testimony.

The testimony goes on to note how China will use all instruments of state to disrupt activities related to intelligence gathering in China's economic exclusion zone, and uses the broadest possible interpretation of the UNCLOS to intimidate neighbors, most notably Japan, regarding maritime boundaries, territorial claims in the maritime domain, and to push back any perceived encroachment by foreign powers conducting military reconnaissance. The United States is well grounded in accepted international maritime law in this case, and it is noteworthy the United States has established a united front on this issue at all levels of government from the White House down. The message appears clear, the United States is not going to change policy or be intimidated, which means operations will continue and it will be China who makes the next move.

Reviewing the Incident

Ocean Surveillance Ships (T-AGOS) like USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS 23) and USNS Victorious (T-AGOS 19) are unarmed civilian manned ships that work for the Navy, but the ships have very sophisticated equipment. Both the USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS 23) and USNS Victorious (T-AGOS 19) utilize the AN/UQQ-2 Surveillance Towed-Array Sensor System (SURTASS) for long range underwater detection capability, primarily for finding submarines. The USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS 23) also has the AN/UQQ-2 Low-Frequency Active (LFA) active adjunct to the SURTASS passive capability. In researching the Ocean Surveillance Ships, I admit it made me angry how much information about these sonar systems is public information thanks to the constant lawsuits by the environmental movement. Those folks need to seriously ask themselves whether they are helping the sea mammals more than people like the Chinese, and I'm not exaggerating the necessity for the question.

On March 5th, a Chinese Bureau of Fisheries Patrol vessel used a high-intensity spotlight to illuminate the USNS Victorious (T-AGOS 19) as it operated in the Yellow Sea, about 125 nautical miles from China's coast. I did a little messing around with Google Earth and created a best guess approximation of the location based on the details reported in the media. On March 6th a Chinese Y-12 maritime surveillance aircraft conducted 12 fly-bys of USNS Victorious (T-AGOS 19) at an altitude of about 400 feet and a range of 500 yards.

Also on March 5th an unidentified Chinese frigate approached USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS 23) without warning and crossed its bow at a range of approximately 100 yards according to news reports. Two hours later a Chinese Y-12 aircraft conducted 11 fly-bys of USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS 23) at an altitude of 600 feet and a range from 100-300 feet. The frigate then crossed Impeccable's bow yet again, this time at a range of approximately 400-500 yards without rendering courtesy or notice of her intentions.

On March 7th a Chinese intelligence ship challenged USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS 23) over bridge-to-bridge radio, calling her operations illegal and directing USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS 23) to leave the area or "suffer the consequences."

On March 8, 2009, five Chinese vessels including a Chinese Navy intelligence collection ship, a Bureau of Maritime Fisheries Patrol Vessel, a State Oceanographic Administration patrol vessel, and two small Chinese-flagged trawlers shadowed and aggressively maneuvered in dangerously close proximity to USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS 23) in an apparent coordinated effort to harass the ship while it was operating in international waters about 75 miles south of Hainan Island. According to the Pentagon statement, the Chinese vessels surrounded USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS 23), two of them closing to within 50 feet, waving Chinese flags and telling Impeccable to leave the area. It was at that point the firehoses and underwear incident occurred, followed by the two trawlers stopping directly in front of USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS 23) which required the ship to emergency stop to avoid collision. According to this caption on the US Navy's website, the Chinese trawlers attempted to use a grapple hook in an apparent attempt to snag the SURTASS USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS 23) had deployed.

Strategic Communication

The civilian mariners and Navy personnel of USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS 23) deserve a lot of credit for working their way out of a tough situation. I imagine being in close quarters with several ships clearly intimidating and attempting to steal equipment is not a pleasant experience. Why or whether the Navy left the ship out by itself in that position, particularly considering history, raises serious concerns about the safety of civilian mariners being asked to conduct primary military functions for the fleet. Hopefully there is an untold story of reinforcements.

In my opinion, every level of government, except one, has done a great job handling this incident.

The only dark spot for the United States is in this entire incident is the military's deceptive communications strategy with the American people. This American Forces Press Services article states the "ship is an ocean surveillance vessel and was mapping the sea bottom when the Chinese ships approached." As AP military writer Anne Gearan is reporting, and just about every experienced hand in the comments has noted, both T-AGOS ships were clearly monitoring for Chinese submarine operations, which is exactly what Peter Dutton recommended in his testimony last year to Congress that the Navy should be doing.

Somebody in the DoD apparently believes the American people can't handle the truth regarding what our ships would be doing off the Chinese coast. Can someone please explain how collecting intelligence on the least transparent nation in the world while in international waters with an unarmed ship whose primary purpose is to monitor submarine activity is somehow a threatening act towards China if we say it out loud. If we wanted to be threatening to China, we would use one of our heavily armed AEGIS ships or better yet, one of our first in class submarines.

The Navy needs to believe in transparency when they attempt to be transparent, and honesty is the best approach. The Navy hides from explaining a massive number of submarines populating the Asian littorals right up until they need money from Congress, instead of simply being honest in moments exactly like this. Which definition of Naval leadership suggests concealing obvious, necessary activities from the American people instead of explaining what the fleet actually does when it leaves port?

Where does the intimidation for misleading public statements come from? Does the Navy leadership realize that they come off publicly dishonest on every Navy topic in the news. Do we get to look forward to the next hearing in the House where the Navy will say something completely different than last time, which was different from the time before that, which was different from the time before that? Is this a culture of indecision, or deception? Am I the only person who sees a pattern of misleading information when the Navy talks to the American people? Might I suggest every naval officer take 10 minutes and read this...

Life in the Littorals

As the pictures show, I am assuming an approximate location of both Ocean Surveillance Ships (T-AGOS) based on the reported details to be near the submarine facilities at Qingdao and the widely reported new submarine facility at Sanya. The combination of active and passive sonars operating from USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS 23) would allow the US Navy to track virtually all submarine activity from Sanya that would come southeast towards the deeper water of the continental shelf. It is noteworthy that if you take your ruler out for Google Earth, the continental shelf is about 75 miles south of Hainan Island, which is exactly where USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS 23) was reportedly harassed by the Chinese.

Hans Kristensen does a report every year on the FAS Security Blog regarding the number of patrols Chinese submarines conduct annually. It is a really good bet the information the Federation of American Scientists are obtaining from U.S. naval intelligence through the FOIA can be sourced to operations just like this. It is also a really good bet that intelligence is accurate, and China doesn't like it.

This incident is clearly coordinated from the highest levels of Chinese government. The incident coordinates 2 different fleets, geographically located in two different provinces, coordinating aircraft from 2 different air bases, to intentionally intimidate a specific type of ship located in two entirely different bodies of water, at exactly the same time. It is going to take someone who can see the very top of the chain of command from their desk in order to coordinate that kind of activity, not only with the military air and sea assets, but coastal patrol, intelligence ships, Bureau of Fisheries, and two unmarked fishing trawlers sporting Chinese flags.

In our military, only NORTHCOM commander Gen. Gene Renuart and SOUTHCOM commander Adm. James Stavridis could do this, and even in our democracy nobody gets to that level of the military without having someone in Washington DC calling them every day. In other words, this incident appears to be directed from the top levels of the Chinese government, both military and political.

China's neighbors need to think carefully about some of the activities in this incident. The utilization of two unmarked trawlers in particular raises serious questions. China has a marine fishing fleet that consisted of 279,937 motorized vessels as of 2004, and is attempting to reduce that number to 220,000 by 2010 in order to insure waters aren't over fished. The problem is, the 2 trawlers in this incident look very similar to many, many, many scores of thousands of other trawlers off the Chinese coast. If fishing trawlers are going to act hostile under coordinated government guidance during peacetime, then what are our expectations be for treating these vessels during wartime. As a reminder of the definition of communism, the unmarked civilian ships and the mariners operating those ships have acted as instruments of the state in an aggressive action against a known military vessel during peacetime.

During a serious shooting war with China, only the country who believes in being defeated won't have a tactical contingency ready to put any of the 220,000 Chinese flagged fishing vessels on the bottom of the ocean. Want to exploit a strategic communications opportunity, makes sure the Chinese fishing industry understands the ramifications of using unmarked trawlers as instruments of state against foreign military vessels. China doesn't have anything like a fishing union, but the country does depend a great deal on the fishing industry to feed their population.

There are many other details in this incident worth discussing, but I'd encourage anyone looking to really understand the strategic context to read Peter Dutton's testimony. It really does help understand why China does the things it does, and offers good advice on what to do, and what to expect looking forward.