Navy destroyer to patrol near Chinese islands

The U.S. Navy plans to send a ship to within 12 nautical miles of disputed islands in the South China Sea, a USA official confirmed to Fox News – in an apparent challenge to Beijing’s territorial claims.

The patrol would occur near Subi and Mischief reefs in the Spratly archipelago, features that were formerly submerged at high tide before China began a massive dredging project to turn them into islands in 2014. Per the Reuters report, the Lassen will be accompanied by a P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft.

More patrols could come in future weeks, the official added. “Ensuring the free flow of commerce…is critical to the global economy”. China has been very much irked by Washington’s approach and United States does not want to handle the current situation without analyzing it in great detail.

The United States has said building artificial islands does not give China a territorial claim to the waters and that freedom of navigation is key in an area integral to world trade.

It was not immediately clear whether the USA alerted Chinese officials to the planned ship movement.

Satellite images taken in early September purportedly showed construction of a third Chinese airstrip in the South China Sea, which would be of particular concern to the Philippines.

On Monday, a USA defense official confirmed to Reuters that such a plan will, in fact, take place – and soon. “We have the resources to support whatever those policy decisions are and whatever policymakers may ask us to do to demonstrate the USA resolve with respect to the operations that we conduct in the South China Sea”.

That same month, the USS Fort Worth, a littoral combat ship, “encountered multiple” Chinese warships during a patrol in the Spratly archipelago, the U.S. Navy said at the time. While China claims most of the sea, there are overlapping claims from Vietnam, Brunei, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Taiwan.

In 2013, Obama ordered two B-52 bombers to fly through an Air Defense Identification Zone that China established in the East China Sea over territory contested with Japan.

Spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry Hua Chunying said on Tuesday that the construction is aimed at better serving coastal nations in the South China Sea and passing vessels from around the world.