The United States and China in Power Transition - Strategic Studies ...

earlier, it has been conducting this business for well
over 60 years; no one is to tell the U.S. military to stop
this practice. Admiral Timothy Keating, while visiting
Beijing as commander of the U.S. Pacific forces,
put it on record that the United States does not need
permission from China to sail its aircraft carrier group
through the Taiwan Strait. 95
These opposing views and confrontations are difficult
to reconcile, given: 1) the two nations have had
troubled relations throughout the years and do not
trust each other; and, 2) the two are engaged in the
ongoing power transition, and the fight over the EEZ
is a test case on the national strength of the two power
transition contestants. The stakes are high on both
sides.
There is unfortunately no easy fix to this problem
either. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea is
not likely to come up with a solution to these disputes
any time soon. In the meantime, China and the United
States have to take their arguments in their own hands
to confront each other.
The U.S.-China contention in this area came to a
head in 2010. In March, North Korea allegedly sank a
South Korean military vessel in the two Koreas’ disputed
waters in the Yellow Sea. In an effort to deter
North Korea, the United States and South Korea decided
to conduct a joint military exercise in the Yellow
Sea. The United States would send an aircraft carrier
strike group to boost up the war drills. However, China
vehemently opposed this projected show of force.
China was not happy with the way the United States
and South Korea handled the case. Chinese analysts
pointed out that the United States and South Korea
made a mistake in not inviting China and Russia to
the investigation (the ones in this investigation were
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