A
U.S. Navy destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of an island
claimed by China and two other states in the South China Sea on Saturday
to counter efforts to limit freedom of navigation, the Pentagon said,
prompting an angry reaction from Beijing.
China claims most of the
South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of world trade is
shipped every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and
Taiwan have rival claims.
Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis
said no ships from China's military were in the vicinity of the
guided-missile destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur when it passed near Triton
Island in the Paracel Islands.
The U.S. Navy conducted a similar exercise in October
in which the guided-missile destroyer Lassen sailed close to one of
China's man-made islands, also drawing a rebuke from Beijing.
BEIJING:
China strongly condemned the United States after a US warship
deliberately sailed near one of the Beijing-controlled islands in the
hotly contested South China Sea to exercise freedom of navigation and
challenge China's vast sea claims.
The missile destroyer USS
Curtis Wilbur sailed within 12 nautical miles (22 kilometres) of Triton
Island in the Paracel chain "to challenge excessive maritime claims of
parties that claim the Paracel Islands," without notifying the three
claimants beforehand, Defense Department spokesman Mark Wright said
Saturday in Washington.
China, Taiwan and Vietnam have overlapping
claims in the Paracels and require prior notice from ships transiting
what they consider their territorial waters. The latest operation was
particularly aimed at China, which has raised tensions with the U.S. and
its Southeast Asian neighbors by embarking on massive construction of
man-made islands and airstrips in contested waters.
The
United States sent a warship very close to one of China's artificial
islands in the South China Sea on Tuesday, a potential challenge to
Beijing's territorial claims in the contested waters.
A
U.S. defense official told CNN that the destroyer USS Lassen "conducted
a transit" within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef in the Spratly Islands
on Tuesday morning local time.
The
operation put the ship within an area that would be considered Chinese
sovereign territory if the U.S. recognized the man-made islands as being
Chinese territory, the official added.
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