Veiled by the shadow of economic decline and global recession, China has been actively asserting its naval dominance over the South China Sea. In the most recent incident on Sunday, March 8, two Chinese ships surrounded and harassed the unarmed United States naval vessel, USNS Impeccable, igniting the potential disestablishment of recently renewed relations between the two nations. A deterioration of Sino-American relations could be bad for the United States, because China, its largest lender, virtually owns it.

Just one month ago, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was welcomed in Beijing, beckoning the reestablishment of a military dialogue between the People’s Liberation Army and the United States. Like dialogue was suspended a year ago in reaction to a U.S. arms trade with Taiwan, an enemy of the Chinese state. Consequently, the maintenance of these unstable relations under the Obama Administration will be threatened.

The USNS Impeccable, according to a Pentagon report released Monday, was on assignment in international waters, mapping the ocean floor with sonar for potential navigation purposes, when it was approached by Chinese ships. These ships maneuvered to a dangerous 25 feet from the Impeccable’s hull. Unaware of the intentions of the vessels, the Impeccable at one point expelled its fire hoses against them in a nonlethal act of self-defense.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman labeled the maneuvers of the noted Chinese ships, which attempted to play chicken with and threw debris in the path of the Impeccable, as “immature,” “unprofessional” and in defiance of international law.

Subsequently, Chinese ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu claimed that the USNS Impeccable had crossed into the Chinese economic zone, hence the reactionary maneuvers of the ships. This provides further cause for a potential degradation of U.S.-Chinese relations.

However, it is not singularly relations with the U.S. that China must consider, for although the international community was increasingly kind to China during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the tide has shifted in light of this and other incidents.

Particularly, the above noted acts of aggression paralleled the 50th anniversary of Tibet’s futile uprising for independence beginning on March 10, 1959. Recognizing the occasion, the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, on Tuesday, accused China of creating in Tibet, a “hell on earth.”

Such circumstance highlights the continued abuses of China, and diminishes what is left of the minimal respect placed upon it by the global community. Thus, Monday’s Pentagon report on the Impeccable incident was unveiled at a poor time as such news serves to further reduce China’s international standing and legitimacy as a world superpower.

Of such things, the United States has a particular and unique interest above other nations. In fact, to China, as a result of excess government spending over the past years, the United States is obligated to repay a one trillion dollar debt. With the congress passing on Tuesday another 410 billion dollar spending bill to supplement the 787 billion dollar American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed last month, America must place due concern on its relationship with its largest overseas holder of Treasuries.

The state of the U.S. economy, now propped up by the unstable stilts of foreign lenders, depends on the want of China and other nations, but particularly China, to purchase its debt. Unfortunately or fortunately, then, it must now tread softly in its dealings with that nation.