BEIJING: China has expressed anger over a US guided-missile’s destroyer approach close to one of Beijing’s man-made islands in the disputed South China Sea.
China said it had tracked and warned the ship and called in the US ambassador to protest. The USS Lassen’s patrol on Tuesday was the most significant US challenge yet to the 12-nautical-mile territorial limits China claims around artificial islands it has built in the Spratly archipelago.
Washington’s move followed months of deliberation by President Barack Obama’s administration and could ratchet up tension in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes and increase strains in US-China relations.
China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of world trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims.
A US defense official said the Lassen also went within 12-mile limits of features in the disputed sea claimed by Vietnam and the Philippines, a US treaty ally. Such freedom-of-navigation patrols were expected to become more frequent, the official said.
The US destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef, one of seven artificial islands built up by China in the past year.
A Chinese guided-missile destroyer and a naval patrol ship shadowed and gave warnings to the US warship according to law, China’s Defense Ministry said.
The US patrol was a coercive action that seeks to militarize the South China Sea region and an abuse of freedom of navigation under international law, it said.
China’s navy said the air arm was also involved, but gave no details.
The official People’s Liberation Army Daily said in a front page commentary on Wednesday the United States needed to learn the lessons of the chaos in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, which it said proved how a US show of force never brought stability.
‘Cast iron facts show that time and again the United States recklessly uses force and starts wars, stirring things up where once there was stability, causing the bitterest of harm to those countries directly involved,’ it said.
