After all, the U.S. warship’s sailing into the South China Sea was aimed not so much at asserting freedom of navigation in these waters as it was at impressing Washington’s Asia Pacific allies.
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The warning was made by China’s Admiral Wu Shengli in a teleconference with U.S. Chief of Naval Operations John Richardson, according to Reuters.
“(I) hope the USA side cherishes the good situation between the Chinese and United States navies that has not come easily and avoids these kinds of incidents from happening again”, Wu added.
Both officers also agreed on the need to stick to protocols established under the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES).
In the 1950s China adopted a U-shaped “nine-dash line” that encircles a large area of the South China Sea and declared that the sea inside the line was its territorial waters, although there is no legal basis for the claim under global law.
In all, six Asian governments have overlapping claims in the South China Sea, straddling a few of the world’s busiest sea lanes and in areas with rich fishing grounds and potential undersea oil and gas fields.
The spokesman said China supported the right to freedom of navigation and overflight, but accused the US of abusing those for its own interests.
An aerial photo taken through a glass window of a Philippine military plane shows the alleged land reclamation by China on Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, west of Palawan, Philippines.
The tribunal, which conducts its hearings behind closed doors, said the Philippines has stressed it is not asking arbitrators “to decide the question of sovereignty over maritime features in the South China Sea that are claimed by both the Philippines and China” or rule on maritime boundaries in the region. The patrol is meant to send the signal that the USA does not recognize China’s claims to these islands or the 12-mile strip and 200-mile exclusive economic zone that it claims around them.
By demonstrating that China’s aggressive claims and base-building will be answered with more than words, the United States may have better luck in inducing Beijing to listen to those words, which for years have called for negotiations and arbitration to resolve competing territorial claims in the Spratlys and elsewhere in the South China Sea.
Tensions between the US and China ran high this week in the South China Sea after a USA naval “incursion” into waters claimed by China. Unlike these other nations, the islands and the South China Sea are not within 200 nautical miles of China’s mainland.
Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) is holding a joint drill with the US Navy in the South China Sea, it has been learned.
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It said the Philippines did not invite Taiwan to participate in the arbitration case it filed against China in January 2013, and neither did the arbitral tribunal in The Hague solicited Taiwan’s views on the case.
