A chilly breeze in the South China Sea

Adding to previous examples of the Chinese Peoples' Liberation Army (PLA) Navy spreading the web and venturing into places they haven't been seen before this report appeared last Friday.

A Chinese submarine accidentally collided with an underwater sonar array being towed by a U.S. military ship, CNN reported on Friday, quoting an unnamed military official.

The incident occurred on Thursday near Subic Bay off the coast of the Philippines, according to the CNN report.

The destroyer USS John S. McCain was towing the array, deployed to track underwater sounds.

"The John S. McCain did have a problem with its towed array sonar. It was damaged" on Thursday in Subic Bay, a Pentagon spokesman told Reuters in a telephone interview.

[...]

The U.S. Navy does not view the incident as a deliberate move by Beijing to harass military ships operating in the region, CNN reported.

No? I waited until after the weekend to see if anything more was going to come of this because there is an element of strangeness to it.

Things went into the security hole. Nobody is talking about anything.

Thinking maybe it was just me, I went over to check and see what Galrahn had on it. It seems we were viewing this the same way. (Emphasis mine)

First, if the USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) had its towed sonar deployed off the coast of the Philippines, then she was actively searching for a submarine. It is not normal behavior for the US Navy to tow around an expensive towed sonar in the littorals off a country with no submarines like the Philippines. That suggests the USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) knew there was a Chinese submarine in the area, then deployed the towed sonar, and it was at that time a PLAN submarine hit the sonar. Second, if the PLAN submarine hit the towed array, it means the submarine was positioning itself behind the USS John S. McCain (DDG-56), meaning just like the USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) was hunting the submarine, the submarine was hunting the destroyer.

Yup. In fact, I'll go one further and suggest that USS McCain's towed array got whacked during either streaming or recovery operations when the "tail" is most vulnerable.

More important though is that, despite the USN silence on the matter and the brushing it off as an accidental encounter, it was hardly that. The incident supposedly took place in international waters. While the Chinese have now acknowledged the encounter (finally), a nasty little issue remains: China is claiming the entire South China Sea as its territorial waters.

The US 7th Fleet, based in Yokosuka, Japan, probably had good information on the Chinese submarine from the time it sailed. The US destroyer was likely the quick response surface ship dispatched to localize and report the position of the PLA unit.

In short, this is old Cold War stuff. This time, however, it may not end well. China takes a much longer view than either the US or the former USSR.

Hat tip Boris.