Because US protecting global shipping is overexaggeration.
US protects US flagged shipping - non US flagged vessels got hit without US intervention during tanker wars for years without US lifting finger. MENA oil exporters had to reflag under US flag (pay US taxes/protection fees) to be eligible for defense. US didn't step up to end tanker wars until bunch of US sailers killed with USS Stark was hit.
Prosperity Guardian is happening right now because Maersk and other civilian shippers that DoD depends on sealift was threatening not to transit through area. Including the ones being paid and contracted by DoD, carrying military hardware. Likely for Israel. Including DoD Maersk ships, who basically "threatened" DoD that no Maersk ships would transit Red Sea unless US protects all Maersk shipping. US is pressured to protect shipping right now because they've offloaded so much sealift to multinational civilian sector, that is now undermining US DoD logistics to leverage US to protect all shipping, not just US flagged shipping.
PLANavy has assets in region, busy gathering USN antiship interception data. Entire reason they have Djibouti base for antipiracy deployment is because they know US can't be relied on for protecting shipping. There was UN taskforce for antipiracy in Africa not because US couldn't protect against a few Somali fishing boats but because USN doesn't do global shipping protection by default. Regardless PRC has little incentive to engage, Houthi has been largely discriminary, leaving PRC shipping alone. Unless it spills into broad regional war, PRC gets to quadruple dip. They get data on US antishipping performance. Lost cargo = more purhcases fron PRC factories. Lost ships = more work for PRC ship yards. More redirected maritime traffic around Africa = more work for PRC ship yards since you need more ships for same demand. Meanwhile, PRC shippers gets to go through red sea, on shorter/faster route, and charge premium. All by just not doing anything, because it's profitable, and they get to do nothing and profit because they're not mired in MENA shit show unlike US.
Not true. FON protects non-US flagged ships; most ships aren’t U.S. flagged.
> non US flagged vessels got hit without US intervention during tanker wars for years
America doesn’t protect all ships all the time. Sure. We’re selective about which FON issues we exert influence over. But when we get there, we protect everyone.
> because Maersk and other civilian shippers that DoD depends on sealift was threatening not to transit through area
Source? Bab el-Mandeb is a strait America has invested a lot into for geostrategic reasons.
> reason they have Djibouti base for antipiracy deployment is because they know US can't be relied on for protecting shipping
As they should. This is geopolitics. America shouldn’t be doing this for free. That said, and as you acknowledge, China is doing jack shit other than collecting intelligence on U.S. assets.
> Houthi has been largely discriminary, leaving PRC shipping alone
“Largely” does heavy lifting. It isn’t simple to discriminate shipping, as the Houthis’ non-Israeli targets have shown. In addition, China gets badly hurt if the conflict escalates and both Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb are closed.
Broadly agree that China is winning by America continuing to protect her for free.
Historically true. Entire US protects global shipping narrative, that got popular post Zeihan, ignore the fact that US explicitly did not protect non US flagged vessels during tanker wars for years - the last large scale SLOC disruption. And when US "got there" they didn't protect everyone, Kuwaiti vessels had to reflag as US to get protection. US protected everyone in the sense that Stark getting hit triggered Operation Earnest Will that eventually led to cease fire with Iran to end tanker wars. But US was fine with years of SLOC disruption until US lost sailors.
>Source
Sal Mercogliano of What's Going on in Shipping covered it around early/mid december. Source is his sources. But martime twitter in general, folks tracking Maersk DoD ships with apparent USN escorts were wondering why they weren't transitting red sea / hovering Gulf of Oman. They had explicit protection outside of prosperity guardian but didn't move until after. Sal sources said Maersk was trying to leverage US to protect all Maersk shipping, not just US flagged/part of DoD program.
>America shouldn’t be doing this for free...
This presuppose US is some benevolent provider of global security, or PRC is free riding. When reality is they both have postures calibrated for their own interest. There's every reason PRC should do African anti piracy that effects her since US can't be depended on. And every reason not to do anything in Red Sea when it doesn't effect her as much as it undermines US. They would be stupid to help US/west when they could be just collecting intel which for PRC interest is doing plenty. If US really wants PRC to do more, they should encourage PRC to open more naval bases abroad and burden share. But that's stupid. US benefits from adversaries not having global basing and optics of being global martime security provider even from countries that would rather not be "protected" by US.
>"Largely" does heavy lifting
Not really, PRC shipping hasn't had pause unlike Maersk or western shippers. COSCO announced they planned to detour but continued Red Sea operations like normal. So far no indication PRC shipping has been disrupted. Hangzhou (Singapore flagged) was previously docked in Israel's Mediterranean port. Whatever Houthi/Iran targetting is discriminating enough for PRC to ride things out. But yes regional war would flip script. Even India/Pak navy war cooperating after recent tanker hit off India. In the mean time, current instability is not explicitly "good" for PRC, but it's much worse for US/west. Until something changes, there's no reason to cooperate. Hangzhou still got hit despite a carrier group there to settle things down, Maersk is halting red sea transit again despite explicit US protection. It's early days, but right now PRC is position to sit back, gather data, and watch US bleed expensive interceptors (which is an easy to replace economic problem), and wear down hulls and crew on extended deployment (which is a harder to replace political problem).
> ignore the fact that US explicitly did not protect non US flagged vessels during tanker wars for years
Granted. And as I mentioned were lazy deployers. But to a greater tendency than any historic great power, once we intervene, we haven’t tended to discriminate.
> Sal Mercogliano of What's Going on in Shipping
Thank you! Will watch.
> presuppose US is some benevolent provider of global security
No. It hypothesises that we are entering into a trade that is no longer at advantageous terms.
> Houthi/Iran targetting is discriminating enough for PRC to ride things out
True. I wager they’ve been lucky, but that’s neither here nor there. Maybe I should retract and propose the greatest beneficiary is the KSA, not PRC.
It’s deeper than that. We regularly protect our adversaries’ freedom of navigation.