On paper, the United States professes neutrality on the sovereignty claims of competing claimant states in the South China Sea.
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The freedom of navigation functioning signifies a significant challenge.
The USS Lassen, a guided missile destroyer, passed within the normal limit of a formation claimed by China, which said its own warships monitored, shadowed and warned the vessel over the exercise.
For months, Beijing and Washington have been engaged in a mounting rhetorical war over Chinese territorial claims – and island building – in contested waters of the South China Sea.
It added the military would take all necessary steps to protect the country’s security.
US Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Tuesday confirmed the patrol.
“You don’t need to consult with any nation when you are exercising the right of freedom of navigation in worldwide waters”, Mr John Kirby, the US State Department spokesman, said at a news conference yesterday.
Zhang Yesui, China’s deputy foreign minister, told Ambassador Max Baucus that the United States should cease “threatening Chinese sovereignty and security interests”, The New York Times reported.
Mr Lu warned that further “provocative actions” might lead to accelerated Chinese construction in the South China Sea: “It would be a pity for us to realise that we have to strengthen and speed up relevant construction activities”.
A White House official has said the USA has made it clear to China how important it considers the free flow of commerce in the South China Sea to be.
IMPORTANCE:South China Sea is shortest route between Pacific and Indian oceans. The Lassen had been followed for weeks by Chinese intelligence-gathering or navy ships, and one of the ships did following the Lassen during its patrol, the official said.
The reefs, which were submerged, were turned into islands by China by a massive dredging project which began in late 2013.
“That’s why you do these kind of missions”.
But despite the heightened risk of confrontation, a United States defence official said the mission had been completed “without incident”.
But satellite images of the islands published by the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and worldwide Studies show that Beijing has reclaimed millions of square metres of land in the Spratlys, known as Nansha in Chinese. Other countries involved in the dispute are Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines.
China has previously said that if the U.S. continues on this path… military confrontation will start sooner or later.
The guided missile destroyer Lanzhou and the patrol vessel Taizhou will enforce China’s sovereignty on the area, the People’s Daily reports.
The patrols would be the first within 12 miles of the features since China began building the reefs up in 2014.
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A few experts have said China would likely resist attempts to make such U.S. actions routine. And to the delight of its Asian allies, particularly the Philippines and Japan, the Obama administration is finally drawing a line in the sand, challenging China’s great wall of sand in one of the most vital Sea Lines of Communications (SLOCs) on earth.
