By Well we now know why the Chinese Navy recently confronted a US Navy vessel conducting sonar surveillance in the area:
The Chinese navy has a new submarine base on Hainan Island, according to the latest Defense Department report on Chinese military power.
The report comes about two weeks after a Military Sealift Command contract surveillance ship was accosted by five Chinese vessels about 75 miles south of Hainan Island.
“The base appears large enough to accommodate a mix of attack and ballistic missile submarines and advanced surface combatant ships,” the report said.
“The port, which has underground facilities, would provide the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) Navy with direct access to vital international sea lanes, and offers the potential for stealthy deployment of submarines into the deep waters of the South China Sea.”
On March 8, the USNS Impeccable was in the region of Hainan Island when it was surrounded by five Chinese vessels while the ship was in international waters. One vessel got so close that the Impeccable had to spray the Chinese crew with fire hoses. The Chinese also tried to snare the Impeccable’s sonar equipment.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates later said he hoped diplomatic exchanges that resulted from China’s “aggressive acts” against the Impeccable would prevent future incidents.
Neither U.S. Pacific Command nor U.S. Pacific Fleet had further information on the submarine base.
The new base means the Chinese want to project power into the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, said Dan Blumenthal, of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington.
“I wouldn’t consider it an aggressive move,” Blumenthal said.
However, the move has already made other countries in the region nervous, Blumenthal said. That includes India, which has begun upgrading its aircraft carriers in response. [Stars & Stripes]
This base was already disclosed just last year. This is nothing new.
There has to be a greater reason for the recent altercation because a submarine base can be easily detected through satellite surveillance. I’m going to go out on a limb here and speculate that the Chinese Navy may have also been testing some new type of submarine at the time in order to have drawn such a response to try and tear off the sonar of the US ship.
This is just another example though of the huge naval build up currently under way in northeast Asia.
1:35 am on March 27th, 2009 1
News like usual.
On a funny note, I could picture it like this…
Chinese Sailor-> Oh sh!t sir, the Americans have a spy ship out here.
Chinese Commander-> They must not see our super secret type XIII sub.
Sailor-> But how do we get them away without starting a war!!!!
Commander-> Quick on the deck… strip and moon them….
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5:03 am on March 27th, 2009 2
This may turn out to be a bigger problem than we know. Russian subs normally come down thorough the Baltics. If China becomes chummy with some of the other bad guys in the world and give them access to this “warm water sub port”, we will probably need to increase our defense spending a little to counter the potential threat. Looks like a lot of our “buy cheap China goods” at Walmart has given them the cash to continue to increase their military and become a major threat. In the long run, the cash big mama saved on her triple X sweat suit will be needed to be paid in taxes to increase our defense budget.
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9:18 am on January 1st, 2010 3
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11:03 am on January 30th, 2010 4
[...] it is not a Chinese military installation on foreign soil I thought I would include it as well. ROKDROP blogged (with picture) about this new Chinese submarine naval base on Hainan Island last year. Easy AdSense by [...]