Senate Armed Services Committee chair John McCain called on President Obama to openly challenge controversial Chinese claims on small islands in the South China Sea.
McCain told administration witnesses at a committee hearing Thursday that the US Navy should dispatch boats more frequently within 12 nautical miles of Beijing’s militarized land reclamation projects.
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs David Shear had told McCain that the US has not sent a ship within the internationally-recognized territorial coastline limit since 2012.
“I’m very interested in the 12-mile limit because if you respect the 12-mile limit then that’s de facto sovereignty agreed to, tacitly, to the Chinese,” the senator said.
Shear replied that “freedom of navigation operations are one tool in a larger tool box” that is in the process of being metaphorically assembled. McCain snapped back saying that a response should come sooner rather than later, and that the Pentagon already knows what to do.
“Since the last time we operated within the 12 mile limit, that number of acres [reclaimed by China] has been dramatically increased,” the chairman said. “And we have watched it.”
“The best sign of respecting freedom of the seas is not to de facto recognize a 12-mile limit,” McCain added. “The best way you can make sure that is not recognized is to sail your ships in international waters–which it clearly is; these are artificial islands–and pass right on by.”
The committee’s ranking member, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), also pressed administration witnesses on the use of airspace above the territory. US Pacific Command chief, Adm. Harry Harris, told Reed that the US has never conducted “a direct flyover, overflight,” above any of China’s recent land claims.
Unlike McCain, Reed also used his opening round of questions to express concerns about the impact of China’s recent economic turmoil on security matters.
“I’m not an economist and I’m not an expert on the Chinese economy, but I think to the extent to that the Communist Party relies on economic performance for its legitimacy, then I would expect it’s very concerned about overall economic performance,” Shear said.
“I think we have to be alert to the possibility that the Chinese might use a problem in foreign affairs to distract people’s attention from domestic problems,” he added.
China has claimed atolls some 1,000 miles off of the Asian mainland—an area far more proximate to the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Beijing’s assertions and subsequent construction of military installations on these lands have led to protests from Southeast Asian capitals.
In July, Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel said that he didn’t “know anyone in the region who believes that a negotiated settlement between China and other claimants is attainable in the current atmosphere.
The US has a defensive pact with the Philippines, a country it occupied for decades after winning the Spanish-American War and brutally putting down a local independence movement.
