Not one, but two United States Navy maritime collisions have
occurred in less than two months in the “freedom of navigation” sea lanes the
US government proclaims of the seas in the Far East.
On August 21 the American USS John S McCain warship collided
with a Liberian-flagged commercial vessel Alnic MC which damaged the military
ship off the coast of Singapore. The Navy announced that “there are currently
ten sailors missing and five injured” as a result of the mishap. President
Donald Trump in a Twitter statement conferred his “thoughts and prayers…with
our US Navy sailors aboard.”
Some three times the Navy vessel’s size, the oil and
chemical tanker Alnic MC measures in at 183 meters long and has a deadweight of
50,760 tons. The shipping lanes off Singapore’s coast are among the busiest in
the world, carrying a quarter of the world’s oil and commodities. Early reports
showed that the merchant vessel was not loaded with oil cargo and thus avoided
a major oil and chemical spill which would have been a bigger disaster.
This accident comes as the investigation for an earlier
collision involving the USS Fitzgerald, a ballistic missile (BMD) ship, has yet
to be concluded. The collision which occurred in mid-June claimed the lives of
seven sailors, as well as injuring three crews and Commander of the ship Bryce
Benson.
In total this year, the US Navy, the largest and often considered
the “most sophisticated and powerful” in the world, have been involved in four
collisions and accidents. In January the USS Antietam guided missile cruiser
run aground off the coast of Japan where it spilled more than a 1000 gallons of
oil. In May the USS Lake Champlain guided-missile cruiser hit a South Korean
fishing vessel, and in June the USS Fitzgerald guided missile destroyer
collided with a Philippines-registered cargo ship off the coast of Japan.
In its reaction to the latest fatal US Navy accident,
China’s state news ran a spread with the headline “the South China Sea should
not be Bermuda Triangle for the United States.” In a statement, it also opined
that “the US Navy has behaved arrogantly in the Asia-Pacific region. It lacks
respect for huge merchant vessels and fails to take evasive action in time,
thus resulting in serious accidents.”
And as always, when the competencies of American sailors
should be questioned, the blame will always fall on others. For instance,
American cybersecurity firm Votiro said in a statement that “I don’t believe in
coincidence, both the USS McCain and USS Fitzgerald were part of the 7th
Fleet…there may be a connection…China has capabilities, maybe they are trying
things, it is possible.”
Accidents in this
part of the world should not be surprising: the US Navy’s confrontational
maneuvers in Chinese waters
USS Fitzgerald after it collided with Philippine-flagged container ship in Tokyo Bay in June 2017, claiming 7 lives. |
Early last year the United States conducted the so-called
freedom of navigation (FON) program in the South China Sea which infuriated
Beijing, interpreting it as reckless provocation of China’s claim in the highly
disputed seas. The US Department of State has in its official statement that
the FON operations are designed to deter “unilateral acts of other states
(that) restrict the rights and freedoms of the international community in
navigation and overflight…in high seas uses.” Furthermore, the FON program are
conducted “on a worldwide basis in a manner that is consistent…with the Law of
the Sea Convention.”
Reacting to the FON operations, China’s Defense Ministry
continues to condemn Washington’s aggressive behavior in the South China Sea,
warning of “an increase in the intensity of air and sea patrols…according to
the extent of the threat that its national security is facing.”
It should not be sidelined that the United States is not and
refuses to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS),
an international agreement signed by 167 states. UNCLOS is the de-facto body
for setting and respecting sea borders among nations, and thus has jurisdiction
over the use of international waters as well as maritime disputes. The United
States, being averse to international treaties, blatantly avoids any
jurisdiction over its sea vessels, and most especially on the conduct of its
Navy around the world, from performing dangerous patrols to the immunity of its
servicemen abroad.
Indeed, the United States continues to believe that all the
world’s oceans are their backyard; that there should be priority accorded only
to US warships and that all other vessels should give way to American warships wherever
they are in the world. A ship the size of a typical oil tanker is impossible to
miss and remain undetected aboard sophisticated US Navy vessels. That fact that
these military vessels are designed to detect ballistic missiles in space and yet are unable to detect
nearby and very large vessels should be a cause of concern for how Washington’s
military machine operate beyond the continental United States. To be sure, the
task of “policing” the world will always be America’s sole responsibility; that
these military vessels in busy international shipping lanes are in a hurry to
delivery democracy around the world.
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