Advertisement
South China Sea
This Week in AsiaPolitics

Exclusive | Exclusive: US Navy footage of warships’ near collision in South China Sea

  • New footage of a 2018 encounter between a Chinese and US warship has been released to the Post following a freedom of information request
  • Experts say it appears to show the Chinese PLA crew preparing for a collision

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
This footage, previously released to the Post by the British Ministry of Defence, shows the two warships narrowly avoiding a collision. The US Navy this week provided the Post with previously unseen footage that experts said appeared to show Chinese sailors preparing for a collision. Photo: British Ministry of Defence
John Power
A newly-released US Navy video of the tense encounter between a Chinese and US warship in the South China Sea in late 2018 offers an indication of how seriously the Chinese side were prepared for a collision with the US vessel in the contested waterway.
Advertisement
In the footage of the incident, which at the time caused heated exchanges between Washington and Beijing, Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy crew can be seen preparing buoys designed to absorb impact and protect the hull of their ship in the event of a collision between a Chinese Luyang destroyer and the USS Decatur.

Keith Patton, deputy chairman of the Strategic and Operational Research Department at the US Naval War College, said the video suggested the Chinese crew believed a crash was imminent.

“It could be upping the game of chicken with the PLAN warship signalling it was serious by making those preparations,” Patton said.

Hu Bo, director of the Centre for Maritime Strategy Studies at Peking University, described the preparation of the buoys as a “natural response” ahead of a likely accident.

The latest video was released to the South China Morning Post last week, following a freedom of information request sent last year to the US Department of the Navy.

Advertisement
Advertisement