ThunderCougarFalconGoat wrote:
It's a bit like having a dude walk across your front lawn with an m-16 at his hip. You should feel threatened.
If China felt threatened by the destroyer's presence (and sense they shadowed it with two other warships, it's pretty clear they did) then it's not innocent passage as defined by maritime law.
I really don't think it's a case of China feeling threatened … it's more a case of us telling them they can't just arbitrarily declare a portion of the ocean to be off limits … essentially telling them to berkeley off … what are you going to do about it ?
It's really more like a soldier marching in formation across your parking strip or sidewalk with an M-16 slung over his shoulder.
If you're a reasonable human being, that could be an odd thing to have happen, but you wouldn't necessarily feel threatened by it.
If you're a chihuahua, then that is a huge threat and you'll go racing across the lawn yapping away because you have to defend your territory and your territory is everything you can see.
Guess which China is in this situation.
Ok, bad example. But the point is, having another (non-allied) nation's warship steam through places that you say are yours threatens your security of that place, and therefore is NOT innocent passage.
A civilian freighter can make an innocent passage, a damaged warship can make an innocent passage, but a fully capable warship can not.
In reply to Stefan (Not Bruce):
We probably should have let Japan keep most of China......
ThunderCougarFalconGoat wrote:
..having another (non-allied) nation's warship steam through places that you say are yours threatens your security of that place, and therefore is NOT innocent passage...
That's not how that works. Internationally recognized maritime law says otherwise.
At the very least, steaming a warship though those waters is at most (and realistically FAR less) as threatening as building a military island in international waters and claiming a national boundary.
aircooled wrote:
ThunderCougarFalconGoat wrote:
..having another (non-allied) nation's warship steam through places that you say are yours threatens your security of that place, and therefore is NOT innocent passage...
That's not how that works. Internationally recognized maritime law says otherwise.
At the very least, steaming a warship though those waters is at most (and realistically FAR less) as threatening as building a military island in international waters and claiming a national boundary.
Exactly.
Long before the first bucket load was dredged up, the Chinese had taken a deep dive (see what I did there) on every piece of maritime law and historical precedents they could get their hands on...they know damn well that they’re “breaking the law – breaking the law”
To think this is the result of 1.36 billion Urkel’s collectively saying “did we do that” is ridiculous...although this isn’t an "innocent passage", they have no business what so ever being offended.
This is way more like someone calling dibs on the shrimp on the buffet and then getting mad when someone with an M16 walked by it. According to the whole world those "islands" do not belong to China and they can't claim the water around it as theirs. The guys with the guns were just pointing out to a spoiled brat that screaming something really loud doesn't make it true.
In reply to aircooled:
Of course that is what the law says. I was attempting to un-legaleze what the law says in a manner that shows how what happened isn't innocent passage.
If the law didn't say that, we wouldn't have been able to do what we did. China's "claim" to the area is essentially them saying that those waters belong to them now. If internationally recognized law didn't say that was bogus, the US would not have had the legal justification to steam through the area at all.
Sorry if that wasn't clear before.
