A top US naval adviser said Wednesday the US Navy hasn't stepped up its “freedom of navigation operations” (FONOPs) in the South China Sea and that the service's activities there “get more attention” than they deserve.
In order to challenge Beijing's tenuous claims to control the vast majority of the South China Sea, the US and other nations engage in FONOPs — patrols in which they traverse waterways they claim are international. However, while these operations often lead to tense confrontations and stern warnings from People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) forces, top US Navy officials maintain the patrols just aren't that important to their strategy in the region and aren't intended to be provocative.
Speaking at the sixth International Maritime Security Conference in Changi, Singapore, on Wednesday, Chief of US Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson also pointed out that the US Navy hasn't increased the frequency of FONOPs, and has no plans to do so.
“I've done the analysis so that I can state with confidence that our level of operations, our presence there, has been consistent over the decades,” he said. “There's nothing that has spiked recently.”
“The operations get more attention in the media, and also sometimes from China, than they warrant, to be honest,” Richardson said.
The adviser, who commands no US forces, noted that FONOPs “are by design non-provocative, non-escalatory. They're just challenging excessive maritime claims…
