Foreign spies are caught and punished/executed probably every year more or less. And governments have virtually no incentive to admit "hey my spy got caught by the enemy". Ditto for stealth submarines.
Firstly, they didn't blow it up. If the Chinese story is true, they surgically disabled it. Either way, no American blood was shed.
Secondly, the modus operandi of the contemporary Pentagon is walking a fine line between a) inflating foreign threats to secure Congressional funding and b) deflating any challenges to the perception of American military supremacy. Defending Americans from actual threats is a distant follower.
> It was then ignited, and ended up causing serious damage to the bow of the boat > and a complete loss of sonar sensing ability.
Surgically disabled by blowing it up.
It is not “the Chinese story”; were it the actual official Chinese story we wouldn't be getting it by this circuitous route, we’d get it from Chinese state media, both in Chinese for domestic consumption and English (etc.) for international consumption.
There are many criticisms you can make of the PRC, but “they are incapable of assuring that their official position is heard clearly and loudly” is...not among them.
What an incredible claim. Americans think China is literally committing a Holocaust right now. Chinese/Russian media is soft/hard censored on the biggest Western social platforms and official narratives from those governments almost never make it to American/Western ears without massive amounts of spin from Western state/corporate media.
Besides, there is a strong explanation for why Beijing didn't broadcast this: they don't want to inflame tensions, especially in the runup to the Olympics.
Yes, but they aren't exactly unaware that China's official position is that they are not, and the awareness of this official position doesn't come through random minor internet sites reporting “official” accounts machine translated after being received from anonymous friends who got release that were authorized by Beijing.
Getting the official story heard loudly and clearly and getting it believed are too very different goals.
> Besides, there is a strong explanation for why Beijing didn't broadcast this: they don't want to inflame tensions, especially in the runup to the Olympics.
Yes, that's a very plausible reason why, even if this highly improbable story were true, it wouldn't be China's official story right now.
It's not, however, even a remotely plausible reason why it would be the official story and simultaneously completely absent from official media and yet still authorized for release via the channel supposedly used here.
The "true" story is really only relevant to the military planners on both sides. And presently it doesn't serve either of their interests to broadcast it publicly.
I’m not.
The claim in the article which provided the story is that it is the “official Chinese story”. The article carefully avoids claiming that the story is true, though it obviously wants people to conclude that.
> Beijing is happy, officially, to accept Washington's story that they clumsily crashed into a rock.
Right. So the simplest claim in the article about the story—that it is China’s official story—is simply false.
> The "true" story is really only relevant to the military planners on both sides. And presently it doesn't serve either of their interests to broadcast it publicly.
Or, maybe the true story is what is officially broadcast, and the one with the obvious lie about the nature of the story is false beyond just that obvious lie?
> What an incredible claim. Americans think China is literally committing a Holocaust right now.
You have conflated "heard" with "believed". The CCP is heard, not believed. Everybody knows the CCP denies those claims; the CCP has been heard.
If you don't hide it, you will be forced to retaliate. Do you start WW3 for material damages because your public opinion's pride has been hurt?