A U.S. Navy surveillance vessel stumbled into a nerve-racking confrontation with five Chinese ships in 2009 while conducting ocean mapping operations in the South China Sea. Chinese ships bent on enforcing Beijing’s expansive view of its rights under the Law of the Sea Treaty tried to snare the USNS Impeccable’s towed sonars with a grappling hook, U.S. officials said. When the United States protested the dangerous actions and insisted that China was asserting maritime rights far in excess of those conferred by the 1982 treaty, Beijing’s response was right to the point. Read More
