US plane strays into South China Sea airspace

A US official told ABC News that two aircraft had left Guam on an overnight roundtrip mission to the Spratly Islands. “We demand the United States to take necessary actions to prevent such events from happening, and avoid damages to the military-to-military relations between the two countries”, the ministry said.

“The Chinese have raised concerns with us about the flight path of a recent training mission”, Urban said.

Navy Commander Bill Urban, a Pentagon spokesman, said there had been no plan to fly a B-52 within 12 nautical miles of any of the three artificial islands. It said the flight involved two B-52s and occurred on December 10. However, Washington maintains that China’s seven newly created islands do not enjoy traditional rights including a 12-nautical mile (22-kilometer) territorial limit.

China’s Defense Ministry called the flight and other USA military operations in the South China Sea “serious military provocations” that could cause militarization in the region.

China periodically announces such exercises in the South China Sea, as it tries to demonstrate it is being transparent about its military deployments.

The U.S. routinely conducts B-52 training missions throughout the region, including over the South China Sea from Andersen Air Force Base on Guam.

While the US says it doesn’t take sides in the territorial dispute, USA officials, including Defense Secretary Ash Carter, have said the US will fly or sail wherever it believes global law permits.

Washington has grown alarmed at the speed at which China’s artificial islands have expanded-from a total of 2,000 acres earlier this year to more than 3,000 acres by September, according to Defense Department documents.

USS Lassen was sailing near Subi and Mischief reefs in the Spratly islands, features that were submerged at high tide before China began a massive dredging project to turn them into islands in 2014. In October, the Lassen incident occurred. “U.S. Freedom of Navigation operations are global in scope and executed against a wide range of excessive maritime claims, irrespective of the coastal state advancing the excessive claim”.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has said China had “no intention to militarize” the islands.

The complaint itself reveals a hazardous geopolitical fault-line between China and the US: China complained about the flight on the basis that US warplanes had violated the airspace of an artificial island that China constructed in order to secure its claim to a disputed area.