Sebastien Sabillon, Political Reporter
20 December, 2023
On Monday, December 4th, 2023, the People’s Republic of China claimed that a U.S naval warship, the U.S.S Gabrielle Giffords, had “illegally” entered Chinese waters in the South China Sea. The ship was claimed to have been near the Second Thomas Shoal, which is an area of water disputed between China and the Philippines.
In response to this “threat”, the PRC sent a naval force to monitor the operations of the U.S vessel. Accusing America of raising tensions between the two nations. What China failed to realize, or what they disregarded was the fact that the U.S.S Gabrielle Giffords was a ship designed for coastal operations. Meaning that it’s only a threat when near land, making it harmless to China as the vessel was about 1,300 km away from Chinese shores. Yet, China insists that this was an example of American aggression.
“The U.S. infringes China’s sovereignty and safety, disrupts regional peace and stability and violates international law and the basic norms of international relations,” a representative said in a statement on the Southern Theater Command’s official WeChat account. The US then responded via email stating, “Every day the U.S. 7th Fleet operates in the South China Sea, as they have for decades. The operations demonstrate we are committed to upholding a free and open Indo-Pacific region.”
This fact is proven true in the US navy website where it states, “For more than 75 years, Seventh Fleet has maintained a continuous forward presence in the Indo-Pacific, providing security and stability to the region.” Showing that the US has had a presence in the region for a long time already.
China asserts ownership over most of the South China Sea, a crucial trade route abundant in resources, despite an international tribunal’s 2016 ruling that deemed its claims unfounded. Other nations like Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam also lay territorial claims, sparking disputes among themselves and with China. China faces allegations of employing intimidation tactics to reinforce its sovereignty claims, especially in the context of ongoing confrontations.
The 2016 ruling, unrecognized by Beijing, determined that the Second Thomas Shoal falls entirely within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. Tensions between China and the Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally, have escalated recently as China attempted to hinder the Philippines from resupplying a derelict warship deliberately grounded by the Philippine government in 1999, serving as a military outpost.
This past weekend, the Philippines dispatched two coast guard vessels to a reef near its coast, claiming China had amassed over 135 boats in what it called a “swarming” tactic. China countered, asserting the reef as its territory and defending the presence of Chinese fishing vessels as “reasonable and lawful,” as stated by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday, December 9th. Despite these tensions, war is definitely out of the question, but there’s no doubt that the Pacific has been boiling for a long time.