The bombers, which flew their mission on November 8-9, received two verbal warnings from Chinese ground controllers, media reports quoted Urban as saying.
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“There was an effort made by Chinese ground controllers to reach out to that aircraft and that aircraft continued its mission unabated”.
Last month, the destroyer USS Lassen sailed within 12 nautical miles of the Spratly Islands in a move many in Congress said was long overdue to challenge China’s claims in the region.
“If China does not send up any airplanes or naval forces to match the United States forces, then the U.S. will take this as a sign of weakness and exploit this weakness by increasing its patrols”, Bennett pointed out. These islands in the South China Sea became prized possessions after it was known that they are located near sites of major offshore oil deposits.
“We are quite concerned about protecting freedom of navigation, the free flow of commerce in the South China Sea”, Earnest told reporters.
“China has pledged to make these facilities available to all ships, and so this very much plays into that idea that they are just proving a public service to the worldwide maritime community”, said James Kraska, research director at the Stockton Center for the Study of global Law at the U.S. Naval War College.
Speaking of the incident, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said that his nation “resolutely oppose[s] any country, in the name of freedom of navigation and overflight, harming and violating worldwide law, harming China’s sovereignty and security interests”, though he did not consider this instance to fall into that category of behavior.
The B52s didn’t break sea maintained by China around the islands’ part, the Pentagon said.
The Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain called on Carter to clarify publicly the legal intent behind such operations.
USA officials did not elaborate.
When evaluating ownership, a tribunal would first need to decide “the “critical date” – the moment at which the crucial events have all taken place and the dispute has ‘crystallized, ‘ ” Bill Hayton wrote in his 2014 book “The South China Sea: The struggle for power in Asia”.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Wednesday the Philippines’ case against China had strained relations and that it was up to the Philippines to heal the rift.
Luhut’s statement was a divergence from Indonesia’s usual low-key approach to the sensitive issue of South China Sea territorial claims.
Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie (R) criticized the White House’s response to China’s maritime territorial claims during this week’s debate. Chinese President Xi Jinping will also attend the APEC talks.
Ms Rice said: “This will be a central issue of discussion both at the East Asia Summit as well as at the Asean-US Summit and the other engagements that we have throughout our visit to Asia”.
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“We asked for clarification on what they mean and what they mean by the nine-dash line”.
