U.S. military forces will continue to operate in the South China Sea in accordance with global law, the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations John Richardson said on Wednesday during a visit to a Chinese naval base.
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“A group of more than 20 people including children broke into the restaurant and shouted at customers to leave”, the witness, Guo Lu, said by phone from Yangzhou.
This was reflected in a Chinese white paper published immediately after the ruling on July 13 by the Permanent Court of Arbitration tribunal, which Chong said which made “some room for negotiation” on issues relating to territorial sovereignty in the South China Sea.
Taiwan has protested the arbitration panel’s ruling last week that deemed Taiping isn’t a true island capable of sustaining life, a move that would deny it a 200-nautical-mile (370-kilometer) exclusive economic zone and rights to the resources within. Reports on social media say customers have been accused of being unpatriotic and “losing face for their ancestors”.
The Beijing News, however, said authorities were not likely to have given the green light for such gatherings, meaning protestors have broken the law and “must be dealt with accordingly”.
KFC is a potent symbol of American capitalism in the world’s most populous country, with over 4,000 branches. China Daily said that protesting instead hurt legitimate Chinese run business. Such actions are generally ascribed to the internet-savvy “angry youth” born in the 1980s or after and raised on a steady diet of aggressive nationalism.
The case against China was brought by US ally the Philippines but the protesters’ public anger has been fueled in part by Chinese government accusations that Washington encouraged Manila to oppose Beijing’s claims to the vast tracts of ocean.
Some KFC customers have responded by posting photos of themselves online with a bucket of chicken, axes or other weapons and signs reading, “patriotic hooligans, try harassing me and I’ll take you out”.
Expressing worry over the rising tensions in the South China Sea region, Fein called on the U.S.to come back to senses and abandon its mentality of exceptionalism.
State-owned China Cosco Shipping, China National Travel Service Group Corp and China Communications Construction jointly formed a cruise company – Sanya International Cruise Development Co Ltd – to operate regular cruise lines in the South China Sea.
China has clearly refused to recognise the ruling and this week it continued combat exercises off the east coast of Hainan island province.
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The United States has conducted several B-52 bomber “freedom of navigation” flights over the contested waterway in recent months, along with flights by surveillance and patrol aircraft.
