The Great Game with a New Player

by John Thompson

April 24, 2001

The collision of a US Navy reconnaissance flight and a Chinese fighter plane may take a while to resolve, but incidents like this have happened before. What is different is that China doesn’t know the "rules" for activities of this kind. As a wannabe great power, China has a lot to learn.

The US Navy EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft (erroneously called a "spy-plane") was flying in international airspace -- some 60 nautical miles out to sea. The aircraft’s mission was not mysterious. Flying off another country’s coast to identify and record radio traffic, radar frequencies and gather intelligence is a routine activity. American, British, Russian and other aircraft have been doing the same thing for 50 years.

Intercepting such aircraft is also routine -- Canadian fighter pilots have met and escorted Soviet reconnaissance aircraft along our coast since the 1950s.

Besides aircraft, it has been a long tradition for naval vessels to trawl for electronic information while skirting the edge of national waters. Usually, such vessels are not conspicuously armed, as the presence of a large armed warship carries an entirely different set of meanings under international custom and tradition. Indeed, Russian "trawlers" with antennas and electronic gear that no innocent fisherman has any business carrying still make appearances off Vancouver Island.

Generally, activities of this sort are supposed to be peaceful — although this has not always been the case. During the 1950s, at least two US Reconnaissance flights and a Swedish one were shot-down over international waters by the Soviets. In contrast, nobody disputed the right of the Soviets to shoot down foreign warplanes (like Francis Gary Power’s U-2) over their own territory; likewise nobody much disputed the Soviet right to shoot at an American RC-135 flying over their territory in September 1983. What caused a fuss was that it would take a myopic drunk of a fighter pilot to mistake a Korean 747 airliner for an RC-135 … especially after closely trailing it for several hours.

In the early 1970s the US and Soviets reached an understanding that protected reconnaissance aircraft and spy-ships from harm. It was tacitly agreed that it was possible, for example, to trail each other’s ships at sea or shadow each other’s coasts, but that reckless handling of aircraft and ships would be halted. Escorting a nosey reconnaissance plane was acceptable, nudging it with a wingtip was not.

China is not a part of these experiences and customs. Moreover, China is not a Western nation. International law that recognizes the preservation of national sovereignty over a ship or aircraft that must seek port or land because of an emergency is from a tradition that China feels little need to respect. Force Majeure is another matter.

In recent years, low-level members of the Chinese government have been muttering aloud about force (thus letting Beijing officially deny that anything was ever said). Twice, in this manner, the US has been threatened with nuclear weapons — a faux pas for nuclear powers since the early 1950s. You can possess and deploy nuclear arms in the Game of Nations, but you can’t brandish them.

In 1994, when a US Carrier Task Force was in the Yellow Sea — in response to some moves by North Korea — the Chinese military directly threatened the force and obliquely reminded an American observer in Beijing that night that China was a nuclear power and that the US military was unwelcome anywhere in the region.

The American EP-3 off southern China was in a potential war-zone, in which the US may become involved. The Chinese military is bigger and more capable than that of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei; and China has displayed a belligerent attitude over the disputed Spratley and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea — sinking several Vietnamese patrol boats in 1988 and roughing up Filipino fishermen on several occasions. These smaller claimants to the islands prefer negotiation for access to the potential oil-wealth there, but China’s position has been an unambiguous "Sod-Off-I’m-Bigger-Than-You" stance.

Defending smaller nations (even those without oil) against this sort of behaviour is an American tradition, which is why the US Navy remains interested in the region and especially so in Chinese capabilities. The Chinese can intercept and escort the Navy’s reconnaissance flights, but should not harass them.

Oh, and accusing the EP-3 of causing the accident is like blaming a tractor for colliding with a motorbike in a big empty field. The US doesn’t have any explaining to do for this one.

John Thompson is President of the Mackenzie Institute which studies political instability and terrorism. He can be reached at: mackenzieinstitute@bellnet.ca