FINANCIAL TIMES: … The US Navy said that the USS Cowpens, a guided-missile cruiser, had been forced into take evasive action to avoid a collision with a ship from the People’s Liberation Army Navy on December 5….
The incident took place during the international furore over the Chinese announcement in late November of an air defence zone in the East China Sea, which angered the US and several of China’s neighbours. US vice-president Joe Biden was in Beijing on the day of the new incident, which was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon.
It forms part of a broader picture of sharpening military competition between China and the US in the western Pacific, an area that has been largely dominated by the US navy since the end of the second world war… (more)
