The warship passed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracel group, which is claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam as well as by China.
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“The U.S. warship violated Chinese law and entered China’ s territorial sea without authorization“.
In a statement on the website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hua Chunying, a ministry spokeswoman, said, “The U.S. warship’s arbitrary entrance of China’s territorial water has violated the relevant Chinese law, and the Chinese side has taken relevant measures in accordance with the law including monitoring and warning”.
Overall, Graham said, the repetition of an “innocent passage” operation will send a cautious message to Beijing that Washington is continuing to take a gradual and minimalist approach to countering excessive claims in the South China Sea.
Australia has emphatically backed the latest incursion by the United States into the South China Sea and has hinted at naval and air missions of its own.
In a previous “freedom of navigation” operation, the USA sailed a destroyer close to the disputed Spratly Islands a year ago, an incident that also sparked a protest from China.
“That is true in the South China Sea, as in other places around the globe”, he said.
The unsafe and reckless move, second of its kind by the USA navy since last October, is a serious political and military provocation to China’s self-evident sovereignty over the Xisha Islands and its adjacent waters, which dampens hard-won mutual-trust between China and America, shakes stability around the South China Sea and further erodes America’s credibility as a reliable stake-holder.
President Barack Obama called on China in November to halt construction on some of the 3,000 acres of newly-created islands in the disputed waters that are now being militarized with airfields, deep water ports, and other military features.
China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of world trade is shipped every year.
China claims it has a territorial boundary around the Paracel chain – a straight baseline – much like the maritime boundary around the islands that make up Indonesia, James Kraska, professor in the Stockton Center for the Study of International Law at the Naval War College, told USNI News Saturday morning.
According to the US Department of Defense, the exercise was created to thwart attempts by the three nations to restrict freedom of navigation.
In addition, the incursive and harmful operation is nothing short of a willful and irresponsible sabre-rattling mounted to flex US muscles at China’s territory and reassert Washington’s juggernaut role in the region.
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Tensions in the South China Sea have been rising, as China compounds the conflicting claims by beginning a program of building on some of the contested outcrops, including the laying down of airstrips capable of receiving military aircraft, according to analysts.
