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China and America Clash on the High Seas: The EEZ Challenge

May 22, 2014 02:00 am | Jeff M. Smith, Joshua Eisenman

Jeff M. Smith, Joshua Eisenman
Defense, Chinahttp://nationalinterest.org/feature/china-america-clash-the-high-seas-the-eez-challenge-10513

"Were the U.S. to accept China’s interpretation of UNCLOS, U.S. military vessels could be barred from operating in the roughly one-third of the world’s oceans that are now EEZs."

During U.S Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s recent trip to China, China’s Minister of Defense, General Chang Wanquan, warned that Beijing would make “no compromise, no concession, [and] no trading” in the fight for what he called his country’s “territorial sovereignty.” Chang told Hagel: “The Chinese military can assemble as soon as summoned, fight any battle, and win.” The comments come amid an escalating campaign by Chinese nationalists to alter the status quo in the Western Pacific that has raised alarm in capitals across the region.
While China’s more aggressive external posture in the East and South China Seas has been on display since 2009, Beijing’s dispute with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands and with Vietnam over disputed waters and islands in the South China Sea have grown increasingly volatile over the past year.
Just this February, U.S. Navy Captain James Fanell, Director of Intelligence and Information Operations for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, warned that recent navy war games by the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) revealed a “new task” for the service:

“To be able to conduct a short, sharp war to destroy Japanese forces in the East China Sea, followed by what can only be expected [to be] the seizure of the Senkakus, or even the southern Ryukus...Tensions in the South China and East China Seas have deteriorated, with the Chinese coast guard playing the role of antagonist, harassing neighbors, while PLAN ships, their protectors, conduct port calls throughout the region, promising friendship and cooperation.”

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