Following, China’s Ministry of National Defense responded to the incident by expressing “resolute opposition” to the action.
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A Chinese guided-missile destroyer and a naval patrol ship shadowed and gave warnings to the U.S. warship “according to law”, China’s Defence Ministry said. “Nothing has been cancelled”, said the official. China has denied involvement in the attack.
The U.S. Navy had no comment.
Despite the discord, the USA and Chinese navies have agreed to maintain dialogue to avoid further misunderstandings.
Both officers initiated the meeting to discuss recent operations in the South China Sea as well as naval ties, the U.S. official said.
A senior Obama administration official said the government had gone through a “rigorous inter-agency process” to come up with options for the president.
“The Asia Pacific rebalance that the U.S. continue to pursue and the security aspects that it continues to observe in the Asia Pacific region are not aimed against or for any one nation”.
Similarly, Mr Murray Hiebert, senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and global Studies, said the voyage effectively puts on record what the United States thinks of the reclaimed islands.
The the area is contested between the China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
A U.S. Navy Aegis-equipped destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles (about 22 kilometers) of artificial islands built by China in the Spratly archipelago in the South China Sea.
For instance, whether the Tribunal would have jurisdiction to address China’s claims to historic rights in the South China Sea may depend upon the Tribunal’s assessment of the nature of China’s claimed rights. While it insists on freedom of navigation through the waterway, Washington takes no position on the various sovereignty claims.
In a press briefing, US State Department Press Secretary John Kirby noted that five out of the seven USA treaty alliances are in the Asia-Pacific region.
The USA patrol on Tuesday was the most significant U.S. challenge yet to territorial limits China claims around its artificial islands in one of the world’s busiest sea lanes.
“Delaying the patrols actually made it into a bigger deal”, said the source.
“All of this attention that has been given to it has undermined the effectiveness of freedom of navigation operations”, she said.
Yoji Nishizawa from Japan occupied the Pratas Islands – Dongsha to China – in 1906 and claimed to have discovered them, changing their name to Nishizawa and destroying Chinese temples there, Chen said.
On seven other submissions, including that China had violated the Philippines’ sovereign right to exploit its own territorial waters, the court said it would reserve judgment about jurisdiction until it had decided the merits of the case. In short, Thursday’s decision means that the Permanent Court of Arbitration rules in the Philippines’ favor on the question of jurisdiction.
In a telephone interview with CNN on Tuesday, local time, Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai criticized the USA for taking an “absurd and even hypocritical position” to ask others not to militarize the region while itself sending military vessels there so frequently. But Xi refused to comply, saying they are China’s territory, prompting Obama to give the go-ahead to the naval action at last.
Washington needs to rethink its strategy toward China, while taking measures to prevent any accidental military clash.
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An expert has found Chinese religious sites on islands in the South China Sea, which are being presented as further evidence of China’s sovereignty over the area. Elsewhere, Cold War analysts stressed a page in history that seemed to have been forgotten by US – China and Russian Federation are close-tight allies since World War II.
