No one who’s been paying attention these past few years could have failed to notice the increasingly strident challenge Beijing is mounting against the U.S. over issues that Washington and the Pentagon once considered sacrosanct. Once such topic is American surveillance of Chinese military activity.
According to this warning shot across America’s bow from the state-controlled China Daily, by conducting joint naval exercises with South Korea in the Yellow Sea, the United States is ‘trampling on the dignity of China.’
For the government-run China Daily, columnist Huang Xiangyang writes in part:
The Yellow Sea is no casual place for other nations to flex their muscles. Historically this is China’s front yard. The Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) fought an 1894 sea battle there with Japan, in a vain attempt to retain the empire’s fast-receding influence. For Chinese sovereignty and national security, the Yellow Sea has no less military significance to China than the Gulf of Mexico does to the United States.
Despite repeated complaints from China, the Pentagon shows no sign of refraining; it is intent on testing the country’s strategic bottom line by going ahead with this display of military power. With the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington set to participate, key Chinese cities like Beijing and Tianjin, as well as parts of its prosperous east coast will be exposed to a direct military threat from U.S. forces. Given that the Pentagon has a history of dropping “errant bombs” on the embassies of other nations, worries like these are by no means baseless. [The 1999 bombing of China’s embassy in Belgrade. The CIA says it was an accident].
America’s military presence in the Yellow Sea in the face of China’s concerns, in addition to its never-ending reconnaissance activities along our coast, only serves to reinforce Chinese impressions of Uncle Sam as a double dealer.
There’s a Chinese saying that even a meek and gentle rabbit will fight when cornered. The outcry being expressed in countless chat rooms for a tit-for-tat response to this military adventure on China’s doorstep is fully justified. We see the way America ignores Chinese security concerns as something meant to cause humiliation. To some extent, the PLA announcement of live fire exercises helps assuage the simmering resentment.
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