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White House tried to stall Pentagon's mission in South China Sea: Report

Iran Press TV

Wed Oct 28, 2015 11:3PM

The US State Department and White House resorted to 'repeated stalling' of a mission to send a nuclear-powered warship close to a Chinese island in the South China Sea under months of pressure from the Pentagon, apparently in an effort to avoid provoking Beijing, a new report indicates.

The US Navy sent its USS Lassen, a guided-missile destroyer, within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef in the Spratly Islands on Tuesday.

The Pentagon was planning sending fighter jets and warships in May this year to assert the principle of freedom of navigation around China's man-made Spratly islands, the Reuters news agency reported on Wednesday.

But the mission ran into 'repeated stalling' from the White House and State Department, a US military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said on Tuesday the Pentagon will continue such operations in the South China Sea in the coming weeks and months, suggesting that it was just a routine operation to challenge China's territorial assertiveness in the South China Sea.

But according to Reuters, an intense, prolonged internal US debate over the mission contradicts Washington's insistence that it was simply another routine freedom-of-navigation operation.

The Pentagon had been ready for months to conduct the patrol, but the White House and State Department were reluctant to approve such a mission, the official said.

'The concern was that, if we looked like we were responding to something the Chinese had done, it would undermine our assertion that this is a matter of international law, and our rights to navigate the seas,' said the official.

However, the White House had approved the movement by the USS Lassen, according to another unnamed US military official.

The White House had directed Pentagon officials not to publicly address the warship's movement in waters China considers its territory.

The State Department and White House did not comment why they were against the Pentagon's adventure, which triggered an angry rebuke from China.

The move, which, according to the Pentagon, was meant to reassure allies in Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines in the face of China's actions in the Spratly Islands chain, was quickly condemned by Beijing as a "deliberate provocation."

The Chinese Foreign Ministry summoned the US ambassador on Tuesday to protest against the US action.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters that if Washington continued to 'create tensions in the region,' Beijing might 'increase and strengthen the building up of our relevant abilities.'