US Navy Destroyer Asserts Freedom of Navigation in Paracel Islands

China claims more than 80 percent of the South China Sea and its potentially oil-rich islands, putting it in conflict with overlapping claims by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

A top Republican senator has welcomed the move to send a United States guided missile destroyer within 12 nautical miles of an island in the disputed South China Sea claimed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam “to challenge excessive maritime claims” that restrict freedom of navigation.

Separately, China’s Foreign Ministry said, “The American warship has violated relevant Chinese laws by entering Chinese territorial waters without prior permission, and the Chinese side has taken relevant measures including monitoring and admonishments”.

“The idea that the United States may send military aircraft and ships to assert freedom of navigation around Chinese claimed islands in the South China Sea is seriously bad”. Washington did not give Beijing prior notice of the exercise – which was meant to challenge “excessive maritime claims” by China, Taiwan and Vietnam, said a Pentagon spokesman, Mark Wright.

In the last two years, China has built seven artificial islands on the rocks and reefs that it controls in the Spratlys, raising fears among other claimants, and in the US, that Beijing will use them to enforce its claims in the area.

It described the American action as “intentionally provocative and “irresponsible and extremely dangerous”.

The Chinese armed forces will take whatever measures necessary to safeguard China’s sovereignty and security, no matter what provocations the U.S. side may take, China’s Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said.

A USA missile destroyer passed close to a tiny disputed island in the South China Sea late on Friday in the Pentagon’s latest assertion of US naval freedom despite growing territorial feuds there.

A Chinese statement on territorial sea baseline on May 15, 1996 announced part of the baseline of the territorial sea adjacent to China’s mainland and the baseline of the territorial sea adjacent to the Xisha Islands. The latest operation was particularly aimed at China, which has increased tensions with the US and its Southeast Asian neighbors by embarking on massive construction of man-made islands and airstrips in contested areas.

The U.S. action was “a serious violation of law ” and damaged the peace and security of the South China Sea, Yang said.

BEIJING, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) – The U.S. Pacific Commander Harry Harris’ remarks on the South China Sea lack historical common sense as China’s sovereignty over islands in the South China Sea and their adjacent waters have adequate historical and legal basis, a defense ministry spokesperson said Thursday in Beijing.

As ironic as it is, Washington has always defended its arbitrary move by referring to worldwide law, but it has so far not approved the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which establishes legal order and regulations on global waters.

He said the U.S. is not only violating the territorial integrity of China, but also “the territorial integrity of Vietnam if their claims are acknowledged”. “Washington aims to test Beijing’s bottom line on the sea and is also attempting to defy China’s sovereignty over the waters”.