More Than Fooling Around

摘要

The confrontation last week between a U.S. ship and five Chinese naval craft was just the latest of many low-grade military clashes in the South China Sea, the site of numerous territorial disputes. It was eerily similar to the "Hainan Island" incident in 2001, when a U.S. EP-3 surveillance plane and a Chinese F-8 jet collided above Hainan, killing China's Wang Wei. U.S. aviators later said Wang had been notorious for his "cowboy maneuvers"; once he flew so close that a U.S. EP-3 crew photographed him holding up a piece of paper with his e-mail address on it. Then-head of the U.S. Pacific CommandAdm. Dennis Blair protested to Beijing. "It's not a normal practice to play bumper cars in the air," he said.