Tuesday 17 November 2009
Taiwan issue, spying hold back ties with US military
Military co-operation between China and the US has been sporadic and limited because of deep mistrust between the two sides, a retired PLA general has said, attributing much of the tension to Washington’s arms sales to Taipei and its surveillance activities in the South China Sea.
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Taiwan issue, spying hold back ties with US military
Minnie Chan in Beijing
16 November 2009
Military co-operation between China and the US has been sporadic and limited because of deep mistrust between the two sides, a retired PLA general has said, attributing much of the tension to Washington’s arms sales to Taipei and its surveillance activities in the South China Sea.
However, the PLA’s growing power meant the US was unlikely to stop its spying any time soon, an analyst said, raising the possibility of a clash like the fatal mid-air collision involving a Chinese fighter jet and a US Navy plane in 2001.
Xu Guangyu, a retired People’s Liberation Army general, said the scope of military exchanges between China and the United States had been limited by mistrust. “Our military exchanges simply focus on joint military drills covering humanitarian relief operations because it’s very difficult to further co-operate when both sides do not trust each other,” Xu said. “The PLA feels it is being mistreated by the US side.” Ties were being held back, he said, by “US surveillance work in our exclusive economic zone and its arms sales to Taiwan”.
The relationship has not always been so uneasy. The two countries had close ties in the 1980s, with the US selling advanced Blackhawk armed helicopters to the PLA and promising to help China upgrade its J-8 fighter jets. But when Beijing crushed the pro-democracy movement in June 1989, Washington imposed an arms embargo on China that has been in place ever since.
Military exchanges between the two sides have been halted four times since the June 4 crackdown - after the US Air Force bombed the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia in 1995; during the missile crisis across the Taiwan Strait that year and the next; the mid-air collision off Hainan Island in 2001; and last year, because of Washington’s arms sales to Taiwan.
US surveillance activity in the South China Sea remains one of Beijing’s chief concerns. During his 11-day visit to the US, Central Military Commission vice chairman Xu Caihou reiterated that such monitoring, along with the Taiwan issue, remained the main stumbling block to further development of military ties.
Between March and May, Chinese aircraft and vessels confronted two US surveillance ships in the South China Sea, where the PLA is building what will become its biggest submarine base at Hainan. PLA leaders accused the US of sending spy ships to China’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) to gather military information. According to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, prior consent is required from a coastal state for any scientific activity within the EEZ. The US, however, has not yet ratified the treaty.
Washington argues that while unauthorised fishing or exploitation of seabed resources is prohibited within a state’s EEZ, the zone remains open to all other regular foreign commercial and military traffic - including routine surveillance - making them, in effect, “international waters”. During the cold war, the US and the Soviet Union regularly carried out surveillance within each other’s EEZs, for example.
Xu Caihou told Washington that China was determined to limit surveillance operations within its EEZ and demanded the US stop its spying. His request was turned down by Rear Admiral Kevin Donegan, commander of the US Navy’s 7th Fleet battle force based in Japan, saying surveillance in parts of the South China Sea claimed by China as its EEZ would continue.
Anthony Wong Dong, president of the International Military Association in Macau, an independent grouping of observers, said the US position was not surprising. The PLA was making rapid strides in the sophistication of its equipments and it had taken an active role in international anti-piracy missions off the east coast of Africa.
“The US sees the PLA as its potential rival, since China is rising and engaging in international affairs,” he said. “The US would definitely keep a close eye on China’s military advances because Washington knows it’s unrealistic to stop China from developing.”
Wong stressed that military ties remained fragile and US monitoring meant further disputes were possible. “It’s very dangerous. More disputes like the stand-offs in the South China Sea this year and the [2001] collision could happen in the future.”
In the Hainan Island incident, a Chinese jet fighter plunged into the sea after colliding with a US spy plane. The pilot of the Chinese jet, Wang Wei, was never found. Two dozen American crew members were detained for 11 days after they made an emergency landing on Hainan.
Wong said the two sides needed to work together in anti-terrorist intelligence exchanges and humanitarian relief projects because they shared a common interest.
Captain Brian Denaro, the US Pacific air force China desk officer, said the US side hoped to expand military exchanges from land and naval forces to the air forces.
“So far, the US exchanges are just with the PLA land and navy, no air force. The US Air Force also wants to work with the PLAAF because we believe more exchanges would increase mutual trust and understanding,” Denaro said.
“For example, we hope younger air force officials will be sent to the other’s air force academies. Indeed, the US Air Force could also provide more disaster relief training for the PLA Air Force.”
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