Start 2016 by Ending U.S. Ambiguity in East Asia

Joseph A. Bosco

Security, Asia

While China builds new islands, the White House tells the Navy to salute and Congress not to worry.

As North Korea dangerously escalates regional and global tensions with its fourth nuclear detonation, the United States can ill afford further strategic ambiguity in its intentions and policies in East Asia. Yet, that is precisely what the Obama administration is offering in its muted and somewhat muddled response to China’s expansionist actions.

With Beijing accelerating its unlawful island-building and assertion of sovereignty in regional waters last year, members of Congress and policy experts pressed the Obama administration to ensure freedom of the seas as traditionally guaranteed by the U.S. Navy.

Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain and others called repeatedly for a Freedom of Navigation operation (FONOP) in the international waters within twelve miles of China’s latest construction site (an area also claimed by other countries).

Congress urged the administration to disabuse Beijing of any idea that it could unilaterally create new rights for itself in violation of the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS) or customary international law.

But for months the Navy was prevented from acting while it continued to engage China in military-to-military talks. Eventually, as congressional pressure mounted, the administration first hinted, then explicitly stated, that it would make such a naval challenge.

On October 27, the USS Lassen transited within twelve miles of China’s manmade island, but confusion immediately erupted as to whether it was in fact a FONOP.  A Pacific Fleet source described it as “innocent passage” (IP).  IP occurs when a foreign naval vessel enters what it concedes are another country’s territorial waters, and does so in less than its normal operational mode—e.g., with its weapons and radar deactivated. But within hours the Navy retracted that characterization, while declining to state that it had been a straightforward FONOP.

To compound the confusion, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, testifying before McCain’s committee days later, repeatedly refused to confirm that any kind of Navy passage had occurred even though it had been widely reported in the media.