Chinese Warships In Persian Gulf For First Time Since 2010

In a deployment not seen in seven years, three Chinese warships including a guided-missile destroyer warship embarked on a tour of Gulf Arab states for the first time since 2010 in what al Arabiya has called Beijing"s "desire to play a bigger role on the global stage."

The three Chinese vessels arrived in Qatar’s capital Doha on Saturday following a visit to the Saudi port city of Jeddah, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

While China’s navy regularly tours the world and its ships patrol off the coasts of Yemen and Somalia as part of international anti-piracy operations, such visits to Gulf Arab states, where both the U.S. and Britain have naval bases, are less common. In 2014, China"s navy visited Iran for the first time to take part in joint naval exercises with Saudi Arabia’s regional arch-rival.

Beijing, which relies on the Middle East for oil, has tended to leave Middle Eastern diplomacy to the other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - the United States, Britain, France and Russia. As reported yesterday, for the first time in history, Russia surpassed Saudi Arabia as China"s primary source of oil imports.

Perhaps this fallback option explains why China has been trying to get more involved in gulf diplomacy recently, especially in Syria peace efforts, and has taken tentative steps over the Yemen crisis too.

A senior Chinese diplomat said on Monday that Beijing could be forced to assume a role of world leadership if others step back from that position after U.S. President Donald Trump pledged in his first speech to put “America first." Naturally such an expansion in China"s global role would include taking tenative steps to declaring who its friends in the gulf region are and, by implication, its enemies.

China Seizes Unmanned, Underwater US Navy Vehicle Off South China Sea

The escalating, so far mostly verbal conflict with China may have just heated up following a Reuters reports that China has seized an unmanned, underwater US navy vehicle inside off international waters in the South China Sea, and that the US has issued a formal statement demanding the return of the vehicle.

According to CNN, which has a slightly different take on events, a US oceanographic vessel Thursday had its underwater drone stolen by a Chinese warship literally right in front of the eyes of the American crew.

In the latest encounter in international waters in the South China Sea region, the USNS Bowditch was sailing about 100 miles off the port at Subic Bay when the incident occurred, according to the official.

The Bowditch (T-AGS 62) is a Pathfinder class oceanographic survey ship, a third ship in the class. The USNS Bowditch is a part of a 29 ship Special Mission Ship program and operates in the South China Sea. She is named after Nathaniel Bowditch. Bowditch was engaged in surveying at Tacloban shortly after typhoon Haiyan in advance of the Navy"s Operation Damayan in an area known for its shifting hazards to navigation using its multi-beam contour mapping system.

Bowditch had stopped in the water to pick up two underwater drones. At that point a Chinese naval ship that had been shadowing the Bowditch put a small boat into the water. That small boat came up alongside and the Chinese crew took one of the drones.

The US got no answer from the Chinese on the radio when it said the drone was American property, the official said cited by CNN. More details:

As they turned away, the Chinese did come up on the radio and indicated they were returning to their own operations.

US oceanographic research vessels are often followed in the water under the assumption they are spying. In this case, however, the drone was simply measuring ocean conditions, the official said.
The Pentagon has not officially commented on the incident.

Although it"s unclear what the motivation was for the Chinese, the seizing of the drone comes on the heels of other provocative incidents that have happened since President-elect Donald Trump received a congratulatory call with Taiwan"s President, a violation of the US"s agreement with China"s "One China policy". China publicly voiced their disapproval of that incident and contacted the White House at the time.

This "seizure" takes place one day after China"s influential state-run tabloid, the Global Times, called for a plan to take Taiwan by force and make swift preparations for a military incursion. The article urged China to rebalance its stance towards Taiwan to "make the use of force as a main option" and carefully prepare for possible moves toward independence.

It also follows a series of warnings to the Trump administration by Chinese diplomats, in which they cautioned that China will not allow the "One China" policy to be used as a bargaining chip, something Trump hinted he was willing to do in a Fox News interview last Sunday.