U.S. Navy ‘will sail warships’ through contested waters around Chinese

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular news briefing on Thursday that China was paying attention to such reports, and that it and the United States have maintained “extremely thorough communication” on the South China Sea issue.

Secretary Carter said last month, in reference to China’s South China Sea claims, that the United States would ‘fly, sail, and operate wherever worldwide law allows, as USA forces do all over the world’. “However, having heard what you said, we express serious concern about it”, she said.

USA officials told the Times that once the Obama administration gives final approval, which could happen within days, the Navy will send ships through the contested space in the vicinity of the Spratly Islands.

In May, the Chinese navy issued eight warnings to the crew of a U.S. P8-A Poseidon surveillance aircraft when it conducted flights near China’s artificial islands, according to CNN, which was aboard the US aircraft.

In the report, Mr Obama had expressed significant concern over the activities China had carried out near the Spratlys during his press conference with Mr Xi last month and emphasised that the United States would keep sailing, flying and operating anywhere which global law permits.

That would drive home Washington’s stance that the artificial islands do not constitute sovereign territory and build a legal case under global law for the United States position, the newspaper said.

Brunei loses about 90 percent of its total EEZ, while Indonesia loses about 30 percent of its EEZ facing the South China Sea in Natuna Islands, whose surrounding waters comprise the largest gas field in Southeast Asia, Carpio said.

The Navy Times report said rumors had been circulating since May about plans to send a ship through China’s claimed territorial waters. Other US allies, including Japan, have taken part in the debate and criticized China for acting “unilaterally and without compromise”.

“If we are not willing to commit to resolving these differences peacefully, leveraging the tools of the worldwide rules-based system that has served us so well for so long…then are we willing to accept the likelihood that imposed solutions to these national differences at sea will seek us out in our supposed sanctuaries ashore?”

According to Carpio, the Philippines has not only historical basis for its claim to Scarborough Shoal, but also legal basis.

They say the project, which includes the construction of buildings, ports and airstrips, violates a 2002 regional pact signed by Beijing which urges rival claimants not to undertake new construction or take any step that would worsen tensions.