a destroyer of navy From United States sailed near a disputed island chain in the South China Sea on Wednesday, defying restrictions imposed by the China and other countries to transit through the area.
Lieutenant Nicholas Lingo, a spokesman for the US Navy’s 7th Fleet based in Japan, said it was the second freedom of navigation operation on the Paracel Islands — known as the Xisha Islands in China — so far this year, and the third targeting Beijing’s “excessive maritime claims” in regional waters during the same period.
Wednesday’s operation of the guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold challenged not just China, but Vietnam and the self-governing island of Taiwan, which also claims the islands, as all three governments demand for military ships to ask for permission or give advance notice of “innocent passages” through the area, Lingo explained.
The Paracels are a collection of 130 small coral islands and reefs in the northwestern part of the South China Sea. They have no indigenous population to speak of, just Chinese military garrisons of 1,400, according to the CIA World Factbook.
The islands have been in Chinese hands for nearly 50 years, and during that time they were populated with People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military installations.
The PLA’s Southern Theater Command said it had warned the US destroyer to leave its “territorial waters”.
“The actions of the US military seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security, seriously undermined the peace and stability of the South China Sea, and seriously violated international law and international relations norms,” the statement said. PLA Air Force Colonel Tian Junli, a spokesman for the Southern Theater Command, said in a statement.
But Lingo, the spokesman for the US 7th Fleet, points out that the US destroyer’s navigation “defended the rights, freedoms and lawful uses of the sea recognized in international law”.
“Illegal and comprehensive maritime claims in the South China Sea pose a serious threat to freedom of the seas, including freedoms of navigation and overflight, free trade and unimpeded trade, and freedom of economic opportunity for the coastal nations of the South China Sea,” he argues. .
“According to international law, the ships of all states — including their warships — enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea. Unilateral enforcement of any authorization or advance notice requirement for innocent passage is illegal,” the US alleges.
Affirming freedom of navigation rights involves sailing within the 12-mile territorial boundary of the coast of a nation recognized under international law.
The US Navy statement said Wednesday’s operation also challenged “straight baselines” — moves to define all waters within the island chain as a single territorial claim.
“International law does not allow continental states such as the People’s Republic of China to establish baselines around entire dispersed island groups. With these baselines, the PRC has attempted to claim more inland waters, territorial sea, exclusive economic zone and continental shelf than it is entitled to under international law,” the 7th Fleet statement said.
The PLA said on Wednesday that the US Navy was raising tensions in the region.
“The facts once again show that the United States is a ‘risk maker in the South China Sea’ and a ‘disruptor of regional peace and stability’.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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