He has called China “provocative and expansionist,” accusing it of “creating a Great Wall of sand” and “clearly militarizing” the disputed waters of the Western Pacific. “You would have to believe in a flat Earth to think otherwise,” he once said to the US Congress.
These are the words of the US commander in charge of military operations in the Asia-Pacific region, Admiral Harry B. Harris Jr, who has turned heads — and caused headaches — in Beijing as well as in Washington with language starker than any coming from his commander in chief, US President Barack Obama.
Harris makes no apologies for his candor, which has unsettled a more cautious White House. As China builds militarily fortified islands in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway long dominated by the US, Harris said it is his job to talk to Congress, the US public and allies abroad about the threat.
“There is a natural tension between elements of the government and the chain of command, and I think it is a healthy tension,” he said during an interview in his office, perched high above Pearl Harbor. “I have voiced my views in private meetings with our national command authorities. Some of my views are taken in; some are not.”
For China, Harris, 59, is not only a tough talker. He was born in Japan, the son of a Japanese mother and an American father, who was a chief petty officer in the US Navy. The Chinese have zeroed in on his ethnicity as a mode of attack.
“Some may say an overemphasis on the Japanese background about an American general is a bit unkind,” China’s Xinhua news agency wrote. “But to understand the American’s sudden upgraded offensive in the South China Sea, it is simply impossible to ignore Admiral Harris’ blood, background, political inclination and values.”
The derogatory comments had two goals, the admiral said. First, they were meant to show that the Pacific Command is “disconnected from the rest of government,” an idea that is “completely untrue.”
Second, they seemed intended to tarnish him.
“You know, when I am described as a Japanese admiral, it is not true. I am not sure why they have to have an adjective in front of admiral,” Harris said.
When his family moved back to rural Tennessee, his mother refused to teach him Japanese, insisting that her son was 100 percent American. In that vein, the admiral does not make much of the fact that he is the first Asian-American to be appointed a combatant commander.
That insistence on his American identity makes the Chinese comments particularly galling to him.
“In some respects, they try to demonize me, and that is really ugly,” he said. “I think, in a lot of ways, the communications that come out of the Chinese public affairs organ, they are tone deaf and insulting.”
A UN tribunal in The Hague is expected to rule soon on a case brought by the Philippines that could make China’s recent fortifications on islands in the South China Sea illegal. The panel could declare Beijing’s claim over most of the South China Sea, which stretches from the coast of China to the beaches of Southeast Asian nations, invalid.
The decision is widely expected to be unfavorable for Beijing, with potentially sharp consequences for the increasingly brittle relationship between China and the US.
How boldly China reacts to the ruling is a major concern for Harris, whose task is to recommend military options should China push forward, either in the short or longer term, with its efforts to control a waterway through which trillions of US dollars in trade, including oil and gas, passes every year.
Chinese military commentators have said China plans to make the Scarborough Shoal, (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), an atoll Beijing grabbed from the Philippines four years ago, into a fortress. Only 230km from the Philippine coast, it would be a potential threat to a US ally. Beijing could also declare an air defense zone over parts of the South China Sea, forcing civilian airliners to make long and expensive detours to avoid risking encounters with the Chinese air force.
The stakes are so high that Obama, during their recent meeting in Washington, warned Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not to move on the Scarborough Shoal or invoke an air defense zone, according to a US official, who was briefed on the details of the encounter and spoke anonymously because of the diplomatic sensitivities.
Neither side wants conflict over specks in the sea. However, the possibility has to be considered and Scarborough Shoal is now the place Pentagon officials say the US might take a stand.
“In the China piece, we just have to be ready for all outcomes from a position of strategy — all outcomes, whether it is Scarborough, South China Sea in general, or some cyberattack,” Harris said.
He said he is worried not so much about miscalculations in the South China Sea between the Chinese military and the forces of other countries.
“I view them as a professional military,” he said.
The bigger risk is a clash caused by China’s paramilitary ships that could bring US forces to bear in defense of US allies, he added.
The job of a US combatant commander — there are nine across the globe — is to serve as soldier, diplomat and an advocate of his theater to just two bosses: the US president and the US secretary of defense.
Harris has added another facet to his job: communicator — an unusual objective for a military leader.
In his “commander’s intent,” a document he drew up last year describing his goals, he wrote: “We must communicate clearly with key audiences, including allies, partners and potential adversaries.”
Wherever he goes, he says that his responsibilities cover not just China, but also North Korea, a pressing current danger, and beyond.
“From Bollywood to Hollywood, from polar bears to penguins,” he said.
Although most of the admiral’s assignments have been in Asia, he has made some detours.
About a decade ago, he served as the commander at Guantanamo Bay. He studied the ethics of war at Oxford University in England. Then came a posting as a military adviser to then-US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, when he monitored the “road map” for the final status accord between Israel and Palestine.
“Harry — Thanks for traveling the world with me — Hillary” reads a handwritten note on a photograph of the two of them that hangs on a wall in his office.
A wall map of the South China Sea sprinkled with islands hangs to the left of his desk. Black circles show the three artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) where China has built military-capable airstrips and other assets. Harris refers to those islands as Chinese bases.
Behind his desk, bookshelves are stacked with accounts of world affairs.
“In reading history, it is those countries with militaries who are prepared and ready that fare much better than countries that have no militaries and are not,” he said.
The admiral talked about how his forces must be ready “to fight tonight.” One of his recent reads: This Kind of War by T.R. Fehrenbach, about the Korean War, drove that point home.
“He says the United States was not ready,” he said. “It is really a powerful book.”
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