A U.S. Admiral’s Bluntness Rattles China, and Washington by Jane Perlez, New York Times
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’d have to believe in a flat earth to think otherwise,” he said in one appearance before Congress.
These are the words of the American commander in charge of military operations in the Asia-Pacific region, Adm. 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, President Obama.
Admiral 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 United States, it is his job, he says, to talk to Congress, the American public and allies abroad about the threat…