Washington’s Muddled Message in the South China Sea
The Obama administration deployed a destroyer to the South China Sea to send a signal to Beijing. But what signal did it send?
BY , NOVEMBER 5, 2015
After months of internal debate, the Obama administration last week finally decided to dispatch a warship to challenge China’s far-reaching territorial claims in the South China Sea. But in the days since, U.S. officials have offered conflicting accounts of the operation, potentially undermining the whole point of the symbolic mission and raising doubts about whether Washington is ready to test Beijing’s claims at all.
