Military operations in the South China Sea between China and the United States are becoming more frequent. The “Incomplete Report on U.S. Military Activities in the South China Sea in 2021” written by the South China Sea Strategic Situational Awareness Program (SCSPI) released data on March 27 showing that most of the U.S. military operations in the South China Sea in 2021 have increased significantly compared to 2020, greatly pushing up the risk of sea and air friction and conflict between China and the United States.
According to Hu Bo, director of the Center for Marine Strategic Studies at Peking University and head of the South China Sea Strategic Situational Awareness Program, the U.S. has maintained a strong military presence and frequent military activities in China’s neighborhood since the founding of P.R. China. Since 2009, the frequency and intensity of U.S. military activities against China in the South China Sea have continued to increase significantly. The U.S. has boosted its own military deployment in the Western Pacific, while concocting the so-called “Indo-Pacific Strategy” and involving Japan, Australia and other countries in muddying the South China Sea.
The report also points out that the U.S. military has been in a state of over-deployment and over-fatigue in the Western Pacific in recent years, resulting in a decline in the professionalism of U.S. frontline officers and soldiers and a rise in the risk of friction with the Chinese military, which must be guarded against.
It has been revealed that military aircraft, large U.S. reconnaissance aircraft conducting close reconnaissance of China in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and South China Sea are conducting about 2,000 sorties per year. Together with other refueling and fighter aircraft, there are about 4,000 to 5,000 sorties of all kinds.
In terms of surface ships, the U.S. surface force presence is about 1,500 to 1,600 ship-days, or about five ships per day in the South China Sea, East China Sea, or the Yellow Sea. In addition, the U.S. Seawolf-class nuclear submarine hit with a seamount in the South China Sea in 2021, indicating that the intensity of U.S. submarine activity in China’s surrounding waters is also very high.
The interviewee said, in the past, the U.S. military whether through the Taiwan Strait or the so-called “freedom of navigation activities” in the South China Sea, generally more low-key. Militarily speaking, such actions themselves do not pose much of a threat to China, as the PLA usually maintains integrated sea and air surveillance throughout. But in recent years, the U.S. military has become increasingly politicized in the waters around China, intensifying its media exposure and also amplifying its military activities at particular points in time, which has had a more pernicious impact and warrants caution.
Hu Bo said that even in the current crisis in Ukraine, the U.S. military’s activities around China have increased rather than decreased. It can be said that the U.S. military will not ignore China because of changes in other regions of the world, and its strategic focus is still the “Indo-Pacific strategy.”
In addition, the interviewee said, the U.S. military’s recent exercises have become more and more targeted, and the activities of its aircraft carrier strike groups have become more and more “combat-oriented”. Since 2015, the U.S. has been seriously considering the possibility of an “air and sea military conflict with China in the South China Sea.” The U.S. military has begun to innovate a series of operational concepts, proposing various concepts such as distributed operations and multi-domain warfare, and has begun fielding simulations and exercises. So we see bombers, warships, and aircraft carrier strike groups going to the South China Sea in a different form than before, conducting realistic war exercises, with the imaginary enemy being China.
Strategically, the U.S. military’s increased deterrence of China is a naked provocation, according to the analysis. In peacetime, a country maintaining such a strong and large-scale military presence and activities around another country can hardly be said to be for peaceful purposes, which poses a very big threat to China’s sovereignty and national security.
Hu Bo said, tactically speaking, the U.S. military activities are becoming more frequent, more daring, and more intense, so of course, the Chinese military has to monitor and track them. The result is that the probability and risk of naval and air encounters between China and the United States have risen. There are now about a dozen air and sea encounters between the two sides every day, although most of them are more professional and some are very close together.
He noted that it is important to note that since 2016, the U.S. military has been in a frequent situation in the Western Pacific, with frequent ship collisions or aircraft collisions. There are many reasons behind this, but one important factor is the overreaction due to the emphasis on the so-called “China threat”.
The U.S. military’s deployment in the Western Pacific is already in a state of over-deployment and over-fatigue. Over-fatigue and over-deployment will lead to a decline in the professionalism of U.S. front-line officers and soldiers, and a decline in professionalism will lead to many accidents, which is a vicious circle. For example, last year, in the U.S. Navy’s Seawolf-class nuclear submarine incident, it is clear that there was a human error factor. The U.S. military has removed the captain, vice-captain, and chief of sailors, the three largest officers on board, after the incident.
The more powerful China becomes, the more effort the U.S. military will have to put into containing it, and the more disconnected the U.S. military will become between its goals and capabilities, the interviewer said. Unless the U.S. changes its goal of containing China in the Western Pacific, this phenomenon of over-deployment and over-fatigue will intensify, and it is becoming an increasingly prominent source of risk between the U.S. and Chinese forces.