Add Category
Since Trump took office, the sole request by US military to sail a warship close to artificial islands China has built in the contested waters has been turned down by the Pentagon, a senior defense official told CNN Wednesday.
The official said the denial -- first reported by the New York Times -- was partly due to an effort inside the Pentagon to turn down the temperature of operations that could be viewed as antagonizing China or North Korea.
Trump backs down on China
"Building islands and then putting military assets on those islands is akin to Russia's taking of Crimea. It's taking of territory that others lay claim to," Tillerson said in January.
He even hinted that Chinese access to the artificial islands could be restricted by US vessels.
'Ceding to China'
Mike Chinoy, non-resident senior fellow at the University of Southern California's US China Institute, told CNN that Beijing would be thrilled by the administration's apparent decision to hold off testing China in the South China Sea.
"I think if you're sitting in Beijing you have to be very pleased that Donald Trump is in the White House because he is ceding to China a great deal in terms of clout and advantage," Chinoy said.
"In the meantime, countries in Asia that have not wanted a US-China clash but have wanted substantial American presence to counterbalance the growing clout of China ... are going to calculate that they can't count on the US in the way they did before."
The recalculation has started for some countries.
"ASEAN cannot maintain its position in dealing with China ... unless the pressure is on China by the maritime powers," Carl Thayer, regional security analyst and emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales, told CNN.
Operations to continue
A US State Department official told CNN that freedom of navigation operations in the South China sea "won't be stopping."
"They demonstrate a very core principle that the United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever this international law allows," said Patrick Murphy, Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. "So this is not about any one country. And I can assure you that (the operations) will continue. I'm not in a position to offer any more specifics."
On Wednesday, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told CNN that US forces operated in the Asia-Pacific region on a daily basis, "including in the South China Sea."
"All operations are conducted in accordance with international law and demonstrate that the United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows," he said.
The Pentagon said the US military will continue with regular freedom of navigation operations but in the future, Davis said, "these operations will be released publicly in the annual FONOPS report, and not sooner."
This would mark a significant change from the Obama administration, which publicly discussed South China Sea operations on a routine basis.