OBAMA: STOP U.S. SPYING ON CHINA IN SOUTH CHINA SEA

Why is it necessary for the U.S. government to compound and worsen matters with China over the presence of the U.S. navy ship Impeccable? Supposedly doing scientific work in the South China Sea, but in all probability spying on the Chinese submarine program centered on Hainan Island, a few miles away, the Impeccable has no business being where it is now.

Ann Scott Tyson reports for The Washington Post that Obama is sending a Navy destroyer to accompany the Impeccable and keep it safe from protesting Chinese fishing boats.

Writes Tyson:

"The U.S. Navy has dispatched a guided-missile destroyer to the South China Sea after Chinese ships allegedly harassed an American ship operating there last weekend, a Pentagon official said yesterday.

"The USS Chung-Hoon, armed with torpedoes and missiles, is stationed in protection of the USNS Impeccable, an ocean surveillance ship. On Sunday, five Chinese vessels surrounded the Impeccable, which is unarmed. The Chinese ships approached to within 25 feet and blocked the Impeccable's path with pieces of wood, the official said."

Oh, by the way, the name of the U.S. destroyer is ironic. Chung-Hoon no doubt is named after a Chinese American, but have we forgotten that the United States had adopted a vehement anti-Chinese policy on immigration, and that the harsh racist immigration laws were relaxed only in the 1950s? Chinese were not welcomed into the United States for fear they would subvert American way of life and culture. The very same arguments that anti-immigration voices now make against Mexicans and Latinos. Now the U.S. is sending an American war ship having a Chinese name into the South China Sea to protect another American vessel engaged in spying upon the Chinese!

How would Obama and Americans like it if the Chinese Navy sent one of their spy ships and stationed it 100 miles off the Eastern Seaboard? There would be much gnashing of teeth and complaining that the Chinese were engaged in hostile acts towards the U.S.

Obama, call off the Navy spy ship and get both ships out of Chinese waters. You are no better than George W. Bush if you allow the military to continue on this provocative course.