Saturday, December 17, 2016

China Treats U.S. Like A Paper Tiger

Posted: 12/17/2016

Just as the failed and fool of a president Obama is about to leave the White House, the Chinese thought it was time for a last drubbing of him. Obama, in his final days, is so occupied with creating a narrative that Putin the Terrible stole the U.S. election and caused another, major election defeat for the Democrats, that the Chinese could not resist.

We just learned that the Chinese navy snatched a U.S. Navy submersible drone out of international (or was it even within the Philippines maritime waters) waters (South China Sea), but contested by China, waters near the Philippines (read e.g. here and here).

Here is the description of the event from the Wall Street Journal:
“The USNS Bowditch retrieved the first drone, but while it prepared to retrieve the second one, the Chinese ship put a smaller boat in the water and snatched it away, according to U.S. defense officials. The U.S. ship established “bridge-to-bridge” communications with the Chinese vessel, about 500 yards away, the Pentagon said, and asked it to leave the drone in the water. That request wasn’t heeded.”

What did the U.S. president or the U.S. military do about it?
  1. Nothing!
  2. No warning shot fired by the nearby U.S. Navy vessel
  3. The drone does not  appear to have a self-destruct mechanism on board.

P.S. This follows another, recent incident: “It was the first time China has seized a piece of U.S. military gear since the Chinese detained a Navy surveillance plane that landed on Hainan Island following a midair collision in April 2001. ”

P.S. Now it painfully hurts that the U.S. allowed its Navy base Subic Bay in the Philippines to be closed in 1992. One of the largest U.S. Navy bases in the world. According to map shown in the BBC article above, the incident happened not far off the former Subic Bay base. Another slap in the face by China!

Giving up this navy base was another bad deal by President Herbert W. Bush!

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