Say it ain't so

After a confrontation between five Chinese ships and one US Navy vessel Sunday, China is calling the US insubordinate and the US is crying foul, not what foreigners living in China want to hear.

US Navy ship The Impeccable was performing a sonar surveillance mission 75 miles (120 kilometers) off the coast of Hainan, during which it tows long cables behind the ship designed to detect submarines (presumably dangerous submarines designed for warfare). Five Chinese vessels approached, thought by US Navy officers to be a naval intelligence vessel, two smaller trawlers, a fisheries patrol boat and an official oceanographic ship, according to the New York Times.

The Chinese vessels "shadowed and aggressively manoeuvred in dangerously close proximity" to the USNS Impeccable, an unarmed ocean surveillance vessel, on Sunday, with one ship coming within 25 feet (7.6 metres), a U.S. Defense Department statement said. -taken from Reuters.

The US says it was in international seas and the Chinese ships violated maritime rules. China said the US ships were conducting illegal surveillance so it doesn't matter whether or not the waters were international. Thus the rub.

"The U.S. claim about operating in high seas is out of step with the facts," a report from Hong Kong Phoenix TV quoted a spokesman from the Chinese embassy in Washington DC in saying. "The U.S. navy vessel concerned has been consistently conducting illegal surveying in China's special economic zone." -taken from Reuters.

Foreigners living in another country never want confrontation, but even worse, confrontation their home country and the international community is calling a battle of machismo.

The BBC and other international news services incident is being called a test of the newly minted President Obama's mettle. Maaaaaan, come on! (I tried to link a BBC World article to this post but it's currently blocked, go figure.)

Here's how I see the comment that the Chinese ships' aggressive behavior in international waters is actually a test to see what President Obama would do: it's lose lose. If it's wrong, you've insulted the Chinese. If it's right, we've got international conflict. Neither sit well with me from my apartment outside Beijing.