U.S. reacts to Beijing’s ‘warning off’ claim

A day after China said it drove a US Navy destroyer away from Beijing-claimed waters in the South China Sea, the US 7th Fleet said the same warship sailed through those waters to challenge the Chinese claims, CNN reported.

The “guided-missile destroyer USS Milius asserted navigational rights and freedoms in the South China Sea near the Paracel Islands, consistent with international law,” a statement from 7th Fleet spokesperson Lt. jg. Luka Bakic said. The warship conducted what the US Navy calls a “freedom of navigation operation,” or FONOP, Bakic said, “challenging the restrictions on innocent passage imposed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan, and Vietnam.”

All three claim the Paracels, known as the Xishas in China, a group of about 130 small atolls, the biggest of which are home to Chinese military bases, CNN reported.

The US statement also said the Milius challenged China’s claim to “straight baselines enclosing the Paracels,” meaning Beijing’s claims to waters between the islands, even when those waters are outside the internationally recognized 12-nautical-mile limit from a coastline for territorial waters.

China claims almost all of the vast South China Sea as part of its territorial waters, including many distant islands and inlets in the disputed body of water, many of which Beijing has militarized.Other claimants besides Taiwan and Vietnam include Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, which has seen a UN tribunal rule in its favour in a dispute with Beijing over islands in the Spratly group.

But Beijing has rejected the UN ruling and built up military bases on those disputed islands in the Spratlys, known as the Nansha Islands in China, as it has done in the Paracels, CNN reported.

On Friday, China reacted angrily to the presence of the US warship near the islands it claims.

“The actions of the U.S. military have seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security and seriously violated international law,” Tan Kefei, spokesperson for the Defense Ministry, said in a statement.

“The guided-missile destroyer USS Milius broke into China’s Xisha territorial waters again without the approval of the Chinese government, undermining peace and stability in the South China Sea,” Tan said.