CNN
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The US Navy has sent a destroyer near a disputed island in the South China Sea that Beijing has fortified with military facilities to claim its territory in the area.
The voyage came like Chinese military enters third day of show of force around Taiwanthousands of miles away near the northern entrance to the South China Sea, in response to the short visit of the President of Taiwan to the United States.
On Monday, a statement from the US Navy’s 7th Fleet said the guided-missile destroyer USS Milius passed within 12 nautical miles – the limit of an internationally recognized country’s territorial sea. – of Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, which China calls the Nansha Islands. .
Mischief Reef, located in the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone, is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. But Beijing has asserted its claim to the island by building and placing military infrastructure on it.
The United States considers such actions a violation of the Law of the Sea Convention.
“Features such as Mischief Reef that are submerged at high tide in their natural form are not entitled to territorial seas. Land reclamation efforts, installations, and structures built on Mischief Reef do not alter this feature under international law,” the US 7th Fleet statement said.
China claims almost the entire vast South China Sea as part of its territorial sea, including many outlying islands and inlets in the disputed waters, many of which – such as Mischief Reef – that Beijing has militarized.
A spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army’s Southern Theater Command said the US destroyer had “illegally entered” Chinese waters near Mischief Reef. Beijing calls it the Meiji Stone.
“China has indisputable sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea and adjacent waters,” Air Force Colonel Tian Junli said in a statement.
The 7th Fleet statement said the so-called freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) of US destroyers protect the rights of ships of any country operating in the region.
US warships regularly conduct such FONOPs in the South China Sea and on Monday was monday in three weeks by Milius, on March 23 passed near the Paracel Islands, known as the Xisha Islands in China, to the north of the South China Sea.
“The United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows – regardless of the location of the excessive maritime claims and regardless of current events,” the 7th Fleet said in a statement. announced Monday.
After the March FONOP, Beijing claimed the US had violated its sovereignty while “undermining peace and stability in the South China Sea”, said Tan Kefei, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of National Defense.
Monday’s US FONOP comes as Chinese forces enter the third day of large-scale military exercises around the island of Taiwan, the self-governing democracy north of the South China Sea ruled by the Communist Party. China’s right to claim it as its territory despite never having ruled it. .
Beijing launched activities around Taiwan on Saturday, a day after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen returned from a 10-day visit to Central America and the United States, where she met the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Ky Kevin McCarthy.
Beijing has repeatedly warned against Tsai’s meeting with McCarthy and has previously threatened to take “strong and resolute measures” should it take place.
