China confirms near miss with U.S. ship in South China Sea

BY SUI-LEE WEE

BEIJING Wed Dec 18, 2013 4:23am EST

(Reuters) - China on Wednesday confirmed an incident between a Chinese naval vessel and a U.S. warship in the South China Sea, after Washington said a U.S. guided missile cruiser had avoided a collision with a Chinese warship maneuvering nearby.

Experts have said the near-miss between the USS Cowpens and a Chinese warship operating near China's only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was the most significant U.S.-China maritime incident in the disputed South China Sea since 2009.

China Adopts Board-Game Strategy to Blunt U.S. Pivot to Asia

By Bloomberg News  Dec 10, 2013 8:42 AM GMT+0200

The foreign policy strategy emerging from China’s new leadership may include a series of incremental steps calibrated to blunt U.S. influence across Asia and sow doubt about America’s commitment to its allies in the region.

Potential next steps following last month’s imposition of an air defense zone over the East China Sea in the face of U.S. condemnation include more vigorously challenging aircraft that enter the area, imposing a similar zone over disputed territory in the South China Sea and asserting naval control over islands also claimed by other nations.

Why did China impose an ‘air defense zone’ that was so likely to fail?

BY MAX FISHER

November 29 at 12:12 pm

The Washington Post

China has one of the largest and most consequential militaries in the world, but how Beijing thinks about its military and makes military decisions is largely a mystery to the outside world. The People's Liberation Army is technically attached to the Chinese Communist Party, rather than to the Chinese government, and scholars often describe it as a "black box" because it is so difficult to understand from the outside.

This week's decision by China to impose a special "air defense identification zone" over international waters was one such mystery. China announced that any foreign flights into the special zone would have to alert Beijing first and file a formal flight plan. The outcome was entirely predictable: The United States immediately violated China's requirement by flying two unarmed B-52 bombers into the "zone," basically a way of announcing that the U.S. would ignore China's requirement. Japan and South Korea also sent in flights. China's "air defense zone" not only failed, it backfired, embarrassing China while further uniting Japan, South Korea and the U.S. against Chinese military assertiveness.