John Garnaut
(John Garnaut is The Age and Sydney Morning Herald's China correspondent.)
A Chinese warship has run aground while patrolling contested waters adjacent to the Philippines in the South China Sea.
The frigate pinned itself to a reef last night at Half Moon Shoal, on the south-eastern edge of the Spratly Islands, and remains "thoroughly stuck", according to Western diplomatic sources shortly after midday local time, or 2pm AEST.
Salvage operations could be diplomatically challenging, given the vessel appears to have run aground within 200 kilometres of the Philippines coast, which is squarely within what Manila claims to be its Exclusive Economic Zone.
The stricken People's Liberation Army Navy vessel, believed to be No. 560, a Jianghu-class frigate, has in the past been involved in aggressively discouraging Filipino fishing boats from the area.
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The accident could not have come at a more embarrassing moment for the Chinese leadership, who have been pressing territorial claims and flexing the country's muscle ahead of a leadership transition later this year.
Today's meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations in Cambodia ended in disarray, without a code of conduct for resolving conflicts in the South China Sea, following robust intervention from China.
Also this morning, China dispatched one of its largest-ever fishing expeditions from Hainan Island to another disputed archipelago in the South China Sea.
Earlier in the week, PLA generals and top foreign policy advisers urged China to do more to press its claims.
Cui Liru, president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, a leading think tank that reports to the main intelligence department, said Beijing had previously focused too much on seeking common ground with its neighbours and putting disputes on the shelf.
"In the foreseeable future, say at least in five years, the Asia-Pacific region will still be showing every feature of a transitional period, which is characterised by a certain level of chaos," he said.
China's ministry of foreign affairs was not immediately available for comment.
11 comments:
don't be too quick to poke fun at china, you are politicizing and judging a book by its cover. we know china is more rich, powerful, sophisticated, etc than you think, really. so just because viet/youn and filipino can't steal from china, doesn't make it right to politicize and poke fun at china like this, ok! you won't be laughing again when china nuke vietnam and your filipino country, really. so stop poking fun on china just because you can't steal islands and waters territories from china, ok! nobody is laughing with you, ok!
AH CHINA FAKE SONAR RADAR SYSTEM IS TO BLAME. FUCKING PIECE OF JUNK FRIGATE
How many times American, French, British and Russian surface ships and submarines collide at sea? They did not tell the public. Was it because of bad sonar or other navigation systems?
This really show the Chinese have no experience. Time for the US to teach them a lesson at sea. Bring it on you chinky noodle soup!
AH ROLEAY 10:33PM
STOP TALKING LIKE AH HUN XEN SMALL DICK AH DICK FACE
Stop kissing Chinese ass..even if you hate yuon, or Philippines (who hasn't done anything wrong to Khmers)! If you have some Chinese blood in you and want to put China above all, then go to China and see if they even accept you as another of their already 1.5 billion, majority of whom are still in poverty despite of the country's relative successes.
AH PAKACH 1:17AM
AH YOUN STEAL LAND FROM KHMER ALMOST EVERY DAY AND YOU SAY THEY DID NOTHING WRONG AH LOP
10:13PM,
Can't wait for China to whack the inbreed gooks and the white men slave, pinoy.
11:32PM,
Why all talks!!! Just fire your-sling shot first and find out fish sauce.
1:17AM,
An inward Khmer-Youn-gook thugs who needed in serious schooling on history. I have bad news for your scrubs: Vietnam will no longer exist as a nation when the WW3 is over!!! Prepare to learn how to speak Mandarin instead of you shitty, annoying, and whining language if you survive the turmoils.
this time it's a china frigate that ran aground, next time it might be a china nuke that ran aground on your vietnam and that greedy pinoy, you know! so stop laughing already, ok!
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