Beijing’s Rebuke in the South China Sea

U.S. Navy Admiral James “Ace” Lyons was a guest on Secure Freedom Radio with Frank Gaffney this week. Gaffney asked Lyons for his thoughts on a tribunal at the Hague which rebuked China’s claims in the South China Sea. Lyons responded:

“The ruling is exactly correct. There was never an real basis for the Chinese claim to almost the entire South China Sea and their recovery of over 3,200 shoals and reefs made into man made islands. And my reaction here is: What should we be doing? Well, I think we should step back a second and we have to develop an overall strategy that includes our regional partners and allies on where we move forward from here. And in that strategy, we need to incorporate how we demilitarize those man made islands, how we make China’s illegal declaration of air defense identification zones and make them null and void. We need to beef up the capabilities of our allies, the Philippines and I consider Taiwan and ally, and Japan, Korea, so forth, in how we raise the level of deterrence to the point where the Chinese see if they go trying to military enforce these illegal claims they will see they will be thoroughly defeated.”

Gaffney noted that the Chinese have rejected this ruling and asked Lyons if they might now double down on their efforts in spite of the ruling. Lyons acknowledged it as a possibility:

“Well, that’s certainly one option the Chinese can take, particularly if we are benign in our response. They will view it as an invitation to continue their illegal expansion and bullying tactics to grab more of these rocks and shoals in this critically, strategically important piece of water, international water that permits over five trillion dollars worth of goods being transited each and every year. And let me say something on this Law of the Sea Tribunal. While we’re very impressed that the tribunal had the courage to make the correct ruling here, it also reinforces our position in not joining the Law of the Sea Treaty where we would be nothing more than one vote out of forty-four and we actually in effect turn over our sovereignty  to an international tribunal where we have no veto power and have to subject ourselves to any actions that could be brought against us, be they legal or illegal.”

Admiral Lyons went on to explain how the Chinese have militarized these islands, equipped some of them with runways and surface to air defense missile systems, all in an effort to bully our allies in what are supposed to be international waters.

Gaffney suggested that this all seems designed to neutralize the United States Navy. Lyons concurred:

“Let’s face it, they built the Navy to confront the United States Navy. When you build an anti-ship ballistic missile, there’s only one Navy in the world it’s targeted against. Fortunately, we do have a capability that’s been residing in the missile defense agency for the past fifteen years and which provides a unique and innovative software technology to be able to effectively intercept not only these anti-ship ballistic missiles but intercontinental ballistic missiles as well.”