Hainan’s maritime administration said an area southeast of the island province would be closed from Monday to Thursday, but gave no details about the nature of the exercises.
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Navy chief Adm. Wu Shengli told his visiting USA counterpart, Adm. John Richardson, that construction work in areas disputed by other countries will proceed, the Wall Street Journal reports.
China, however, rejected the ruling, calling it “null and void”, and inaugurated two airports in the disputed reefs in the South China Sea and threatened to establish an air defence zone in the region.
Naval chiefs from China and the United States are set to hold their first face-to-face meeting since the July 12 ruling on the arbitration case brought by the Philippines, which has intensified tensions in the South China Sea.
President Barack Obama’s nominee for the next US ambassador to the Philippines, Sung Kim, said the United States would support China-Philippines negotiations that were free from “coercion and undue pressure”.
Beijing claims most of the South China Sea, even waters approaching neighbouring countries, as its sovereign territory, basing its arguments on Chinese maps dating back to the 1940s marked with a so-called “nine-dash line”.
China expectedly has rejected the decision and says that India is on the same page, quoting a “common position” statement signed by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at the Russia-India-China conference in Moscow in April, even though New Delhi has made it clear that the verdict must be given utmost respect.
Vietnam, with maritime claims that overlap China’s, has said that it welcomes the verdict but has otherwise been restrained in its reaction.
The meeting between Wu and Richardson came two days after Sun Jianguo, a senior admiral and deputy chief of the Joint Staff Department of the influential Central Military Commission, warned that freedom of navigation patrols conducted by the USA could end “in disaster”.
The Philippines will fight for its landmark arbitration victory to be upheld when it talks about resolving its South China Sea disputes with China, which has refused to recognize the ruling, the government lawyer said Friday.
Sun said his country would not let anyone harm its stakes in the sea and that the so-called freedom of navigation issue brings in military threats, as well as “challenges and disrespects the global law of the sea”.
China generally describes its exercises in the South China Sea as routine.
The U.S. has conducted three freedom of navigation operations since October in the South China Sea, each time drawing the ire of Beijing.
China has rapidly built reefs in the waters into artificial islands capable of military use.
Such air patrols would become “a regular practice” in the future, Xinhua reported an air force spokesman as saying.
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The commander of the People’s Liberation Army Navy Wu Shengli has stressed that China and the United States have key roles in ensuring peace and stability in the South China Sea, and cooperation between the navies of the two countries is “the only correct option”.
