Challenging Chinese Claims, U.S. Sends Navy Ship to Artificial Island Chain
WASHINGTON: A U.S. naval destroyer was approaching waters near the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea late Monday, the Pentagon said, directly challenging China’s claims that the artificial island chain is within its territorial borders.
The U.S.S. Lassen, a guided missile destroyer, was preparing to sail within 12 nautical miles of the islands, making a long-anticipated entry into the disputed waters, officials said. U.S. officials did not inform their Chinese counterparts as they planned the provocative maneuver, saying that to do so would have undercut their message.
The Obama administration did not make an immediate announcement of the naval maneuver, and Pentagon officials would only confirm that it was planned, as they had forecast weeks ago.
The White House declined to share any details about the operation, referring questions to the Defense Department. But Josh Earnest, the press secretary, noted that President Barack Obama had stood next to President Xi Jinping of China at a Rose Garden news conference last month and said that the United States would operate, fly or sail anywhere that international law allowed.
U.S. officials had said for the last month that the Navy would send a surface ship inside the waters claimed by China, a vow widely viewed as a signal to the Chinese that most of the rest of the world does not recognize its claim on the island chain. Obama approved the move this month, administration officials said.
The president signaled the Navy maneuver last month at the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, when he said that the United States had an “interest in upholding the basic principles of freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce and in resolving disputes through international law, not the law of force.”
Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter has said repeatedly that the U.S. military will operate where international law allows.
China, in what some Asia analysts interpreted as a gesture to pre-empt the U.S. naval maneuver, sent warships into U.S. territorial waters in August. Five Chinese ships came within 12 miles of the coast of Alaska while Obama was visiting the state.
But U.S. military officials said that the two maneuvers were not comparable, citing international maritime laws that allow passage such as the Chinese transit near Alaska if there was no other passageway for a ship to reach its destination.
In the case of the Spratly Islands, one U.S. military official said, there were several other routes that the U.S. destroyer could have used, but the military deliberately chose to enter the waters that China claims as its territory.
In recent years, China has been claiming large parts of the strategic waterway by enlarging rocks and submerged reefs into islands big enough for military airstrips, radar equipment and lodging for soldiers, U.S. officials said.
Although China claims much of the South China Sea as sovereign territory, the 12-mile zone around the new islands is particularly delicate because international law says that artificial islands do not have sovereign rights up to the 12-mile limit.
The United States has not traveled close to the Chinese-occupied islands in the South China Sea since at least 2012. In May, a U.S. Navy surveillance plane flew near three of China’s five artificial islands but did not go within the 12-mile zones. Chinese Navy radio operators warned the Americans to leave the area.
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Source:Ndtv
