A striking paper in an authoritative journal of the international shipbuilding industry "Ship Electronic Countermeasures" led us into an unexpected confrontation in the South China Sea. Although some time has passed since this event, its full argument and profound revelation are still valuable. Looking back, a U.S. P-8A anti-submarine patrol plane was conducting unusually active reconnaissance and other activities over waters about 150 kilometers from Hong Kong, and the People's Liberation Army, which was conducting exercises in the area, also keenly dispatched a response force, although the size and nature of the force were not disclosed.
After some time, when our troops approached a distance sufficient to detect the US aircraft, the US military aircraft urgently turned off the buoy signal and completed the so-called "anti-submarine mission", after which they immediately transmitted self-destruction instructions to the buoy and quickly sank the buoy to the bottom of the sea to prevent the leakage of sensitive information or the location of the buoy. The purpose of this series of operations was very clear: they feared that our military would intercept the signal and thus compromise their classified information.
The paper's author, a researcher from a specific unit of the People's Liberation Army, and his team strongly believe that U.S. anti-submarine and reconnaissance behavior in the South China Sea poses a serious challenge to China's national security. Especially when war breaks out, the U.S. military relies on sonar buoys to search for submarines, which will pose a mortal threat to Chinese submarines. What's more, U.S. military aircraft often conduct multiple, segmented reconnaissance and anti-submarine missions, frequently intrude into the South China Sea, and closely monitor the activities of Chinese underwater targets. Such activities include continuously sensing the situation on the battlefield, strengthening the monitoring of underwater targets, adopting tactical actions to descend altitude, dropping buoys in our submarine activity areas or important water channels, receiving sonar for submarine search, in order to track, suppress and contain the underwater military activities of the PLA, posing serious challenges to our military information security and air defense combat readiness.
The paper describes in detail the reconnaissance and anti-submarine processes of the P-8A anti-submarine patrol aircraft. This type of military aircraft usually selects the optimal flight altitude of 60 meters when flying over the target area, and uses vigilance radar, electronic reconnaissance instruments or infrared reconnaissance instruments to conduct extensive search for targets. Once the presence of a submarine is discovered, they quickly deploy sonar buoys or buoy arrays and cruise around the buoys, monitoring the signals transmitted by the sonar buoys in order to determine the exact location of the submarine in order to develop the next action plan.
While the paper does not explicitly provide specific solutions to this problem, it reminds the Chinese military to delve deeper into intelligence reconnaissance to understand the patterns of placement and layout of U.S. sonar buoys, as well as their tactical and operational applications, in order to be fully prepared for such military challenges that may be faced in the future.
In the past, news of U.S.-China conflicts in the South China Sea often involved air and sea confrontations, such as air standoffs between military aircraft and expulsions and counter-expulsions by warships from a safe distance. However, the uniqueness of this confrontation in the South China Sea is that it involves both underwater and air competition, which has been rare in the past. The fact that the Chinese side dared to make this public announcement shows that tensions between China and the United States are intensifying, and that the military, which is supposed to stabilize the situation, is locked in an unusually fierce competition. From the confrontation described in the paper, it can be seen that the slightest carelessness can lead to unpredictable accidents in the South China Sea. For example, the Chinese side used jamming tactics to put American aircraft in a dangerous situation.
Since the Chinese side dared to make this public announcement, it may mean that they have found an effective way to respond. In particular, the major directions of solving problems mentioned in the paper are expected to have made substantial progress. This high-profile announcement is also to warn the United States not to conduct reconnaissance or anti-submarine activities in the waters under China's jurisdiction. For these challenges, China has a response and is willing to meet any challenge.