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Seoul, South Korea
CNN
—
A day after China announced it had forced U.S. Navy destroyers out of waters claimed by China in the South China Sea, the U.S. 7th Fleet said the same warships had sailed through those waters to challenge China’s claims. Stated.
“The guided-missile destroyer USS Milius has claimed navigation rights and freedoms in the South China Sea near the Paracel Islands, consistent with international law,” Luka Bakić said.
The warships conducted what the U.S. Navy calls “freedom of navigation operations,” or FONOP, “challenging restrictions on harmless transit imposed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan, and Vietnam,” Bakich said. said Mr.
All three claim Paracels, known as Xishas in China. This is a group of about 130 small atolls, the largest of which is home to a Chinese military base.
The U.S. statement also stated that Milius would be within China’s claimed “straight baseline surrounding the Paracel Islands,” i.e., outside the internationally recognized 12 nautical miles of China’s recognized territorial coastline. He said he disputed China’s claims to the waters between the islands.
China claims almost all of the vast South China Sea as part of its territorial waters, including many remote islands and coves in disputed waters, many of which are located in Beijing. is militarized.
Other than Taiwan and Vietnam, the claimants include Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, in a dispute with the Chinese government over the Spratly Islands, where a United Nations court ruled in favor.
But Beijing rejected the UN decision and built military bases on the disputed Spratly Islands, known in China as the Spratly Islands, as it did with the Paracel Islands.
On Friday, China reacted angrily to the presence of US warships near the islands it claims.
“The U.S. military’s actions seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security and violated international law,” defense ministry spokesman Tan Kefei said in a statement.
“The guided-missile destroyer USS Milius re-entered China’s Xisha territorial waters without the Chinese government’s approval, undermining peace and stability in the South China Sea,” Tan said.
On Thursday, the Chinese government said Milius had been kicked out of the Paracel Islands by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, a claim the U.S. 7th Fleet said was “false.”
Beijing makes similar claims after other FONOPs that the United States regularly conducts around the Paracels and Spratly Islands.
Paracel is located east of Da Nang in Vietnam and south of Hainan Island in China.
Beijing regularly makes statements that US naval operations in the South China Sea have heightened tensions and undermined regional security for Washington and its partners who maintain naval presence in the waterway.
The area around Paracel was the site of a tense encounter between Chinese fighter jets and U.S. reconnaissance planes in February, witnessed by a CNN crew.
Washington, then and now, has been consistent in its statements regarding operations in the South China Sea.
Friday’s statement, like many others before it, said, “This operation demonstrates that the United States will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows.”
In recent years, the South China Sea has emerged as a major flashpoint in the Asia-Pacific region.
Not only are strategic waterways home to vast resources of fish, oil and gas, they also carried about a third of the world’s shipping in 2016, according to the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). To do. This equates to approximately $3.4 trillion in 2016.
China also conducts regular military exercises in much of the South China Sea and maintains a large presence of coast guards and fishing vessels in the disputed waters, frequently causing tensions with other claimants. I’m here.
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