China urges U.S. to ‘reflect and correct its mistake’

China claims sovereignty over the South China Sea and has built seven artificial islands over shallow reefs in the past year to exert control over the resource-rich waters, which are also claimed by neighboring states.

China’s military went on high alert during the incident and ordered the American bombers to leave the area, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

During the mission by the two B-52 bombers, one of the aircraft unintentionally flew within two nautical miles of an artificially constructed island, the Wall Street Journal quoted Pentagon officials as saying Friday. He stressed that China respects other countries’ navigation and overflight freedom but will not allow that be used as an excuse to undermine its sovereignty and security interests. In China’s case, the economy that has been slowing down can seriously hamper the Chinese ambition to subdue its neighbours, if it disproportionately prioritizes the long-running disputes in the South China Sea at the expense of more pressing issues at home.

On Saturday, Chinese officials linked the B-52s with past USA attempts to “make a show of force”.

China’s Defence Ministry demanded that Washington immediately take measures to prevent such incidents and damage to relations between the two nations’ armed forces.

China, which claims nearly the entire South China Sea, has stepped up a program of land reclamation and construction in the disputed islands and reefs, which has sparked concern in the US and the Asia-Pacific region.

For its part, Japan has been mired in a territorial spat with China over a group of tiny, uninhabited islets in the East China Sea.

However, Urban said the flight was not a “freedom of navigation” operation, indicating that the plane may have strayed off course.

He added that the U.S., which has yet to confirm how many bombers were involved in the mission, is now looking into the matter. The U.S. uses pre-planned freedom of navigation operations to assert its rights to “innocent passage” in other country’s territorial waters.

US Representative Sheila Jackson Lee and Representative Mike Bishop shared similar views and lauded Taiwan’s efforts to promote peace and stability in the South China Sea.

India’s trilateral naval exercise with Japan and the United States, named “Malabar”, should not destabilise China’s maritime neighbourhood, said China’s Ambassador to India Le Yucheng to The Hindu on Saturday.

Beijing demanded the deal be scrapped to avoid harming relations across the Taiwan Strait and between China and the US.

Chinese government officials filed a complaint with the USA embassy in Beijing after a US bomber flew close to disputed islands. USA defense firms are forbidden to sell arms to Taiwan.