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China’s military
ChinaDiplomacy

US has ramped up reconnaissance in Chinese-claimed waters, says Beijing

  • China says US reconnaissance is up 20 per cent for warships and 40 per cent for planes in areas claimed by Beijing, causing warships’ close encounter
  • It comes as President Joe Biden tells Congress the US is ‘in competition with China and other countries to win the 21st century’

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The Chinese defence ministry said an increase in US reconnaissance was having a destabilising influence. Photo: USS Theodore Roosevelt
Catherine Wong
The United States has ramped up reconnaissance activities near China’s coast under Joe Biden’s administration, leading to a recent close encounter between the country’s warships, Beijing warned on Thursday after the American president defined their rivalry as the battle of the century between democracy and autocracy.

On the day that Biden targeted Beijing in his first speech to a joint session of Congress, Chinese defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian said operations had increased by more than 20 per cent for US warships and 40 per cent for planes in and around waters claimed by China, compared with the same period last year under Donald Trump’s administration.

Wu said at a monthly press conference that the increase was “destabilising” and had led to a close encounter in early April when the guided-missile destroyer USS Mustin had to be warned away as it conducted a “close-up reconnaissance” of the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning and its battle group.

The encounter followed weeks of tensions between China and the Philippines over the presence of Chinese vessels at Whitsun Reef in the Spratly Islands, within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone but claimed by both nations. 

The US Navy released a provocative photograph after the incident, showing senior American navy officers gazing at a Chinese warship while shadowing the Liaoning carrier group at a close distance. 

Wu said the encounter had “seriously interfered with the Chinese side’s training activities and severely threatened the navigation safety and safety of personnel on both sides”, adding that the Chinese ships “warned off” the US ships and had lodged complaints with Washington. 

Beijing’s statement came as Biden used his first address to the joint sessions of Congress to cast the US-China relationship as a battle in century-defining technologies and vowed to “maintain a strong military presence” in the Indo-Pacific region – “not to start conflict, but to prevent one”.
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