AP Photo/Marco GarciaReporters and visitors walk aboard the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy ship Haikou, Saturday, July 5, 2014, at Hawaii's Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickham. Chinese ships will be participating in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) multinational naval exercises taking place in and around the Hawaiian Islands.
Chinese spy shiplurks near Hawaii as country’s vessels join U.S. navy for drills: WHY!
China sent a surveillance vessel to waters off Hawaii even as the country participated for the first time in the world’s largest international naval exercise led by the U.S.
The auxiliary general intelligence ship is outside U.S. territorial seas, yet within the 200-nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone, Captain Darryn James, chief spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
The vessel is not associated with the Rim of the Pacific Exercise, or Rimpac, that’s now under way, he said.
“U.S. naval forces continually monitor all maritime activity in the Pacific, and we expect this ship will remain outside of U.S. territorial seas and not operate in a manner that disrupts the ongoing Rim of the Pacific maritime exercise,”
James said.
James said.
China sent the second-largest contingent to this year’s Rimpac, after being invited to participate by the U.S. for the first time. Designed to foster international cooperation as China’s navy expands its capabilities, the presence of the surveillance vessel has raised questions among some of the other countries taking part.
AP Photo/Audrey McAvoyPeople's Liberation Army sailors pat down U.S. Coast Guardsmen playing the role of merchant mariners aboard the Coast Guard cutter Waesche off Hawaii on Wednesday, July 16, 2014. Chinese sailors boarded the Coast Guard cutter Waesche for a drill checking cargo as part of Rim of the Pacific exercises the U.S. is hosting in Hawaii waters
“It sends a bad signal,” said Ben Schreer, a senior analyst for defense strategy at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra. “There was a lot of good will on the American side that said ‘despite what you have been doing in the East and South China Sea recently, we invited you to this prestigious exercise and what you do is blatantly put this spy ship in the area.’”
China has been been taking a more assertive stance in territorial spats with Japan in the East China Sea and the Philippines and Vietnam in the South China Sea, which has raised tensions in the region.
While China is taking part in this year’s Rimpac, its forces are being kept out of most of the exercises’ core combat components. The country has sent four ships — missile destroyer Haikou, frigate Yueyang, supply ship Qiandaohu and the Peace Ark medical ship.
“This is not the first time we’ve been under surveillance while we’re operating or exercising,” said Per Rostad, commanding officer of the Royal Norwegian Navy’s Fridtjof Nansen. “However, one might say it’s a bit novel when you participate in an exercise with participating units,” said Rostad, who worked alongside the Chinese navy to transport chemical weapons from Syria.
“You don’t really see exercises on this scale in Europe,” he said. “The amount of fighter aircraft, maritime patrol aircraft, the amount of submarines, the amount of different types of targets to fire ordnance.”
International law provides freedom of navigation through a country’s Exclusive Economic Zone. The U.S. recognizes and respects the right of all nations to exercise freedom of navigation and overflight beyond any coastal nation’s territorial seas according to international law, James said, in reference to the Chinese surveillance ship.
China’s Defense Ministry said the movements of the Chinese ship in international waters complied with international law, the state-owned Global Times reported.
“China respects the rights enjoyed by all relevant coastal states under international law, and hopes that relevant countries respect the rights enjoyed by Chinese ships according to the law,” an official in the ministry’s news department was quoted as saying.
China has long complained about U.S. surveillance activities off China’s coast within the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone. In 2009, China said that a Navy surveillance ship conducted activity in the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone in the Yellow Sea that violated international and Chinese laws. The USNS Victorious didn’t seek China’s permission, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said at the time.
“What it shows is that China is applying double standards here,” Schreer said.
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