https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...78497b-7033-4e4c-a328-0f3c980cf193_story.html
A U.S. naval destroyer sailed early Tuesday within 12 nautical miles of an artificial island built by China in the South China Sea, a U.S. defense official said, in a direct challenge to China’s territorial claims.
The USS Lassen, a guided-missile destroyer, was accompanied by Navy surveillance planes as it approached the Subi Reef in the Spratly Islands, the official said.
The mission “was completed without incident,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The decision to go ahead with the mission follows months of deliberation in Washington and is certain to anger China, which said last month it would “never allow any country” to violate its territorial waters and airspace around the islands.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had said earlier that Beijing was trying to verify whether the U.S. vessel had entered the 12-mile zone.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen anchored at Tien Sa port in Vietnam's central coastal city of Danang in 2009. (Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP/Getty Images)
“If true, we advise the U.S. to think again, not to act blindly or make trouble out of nothing,” the Foreign Ministry quoted him as saying.
The U.S. mission is also intended to test a pledge made by President Xi Jinping during his visit to Washington last month that Beijing would not militarize the islands, U.S. officials have said.
Subi Reef, which lies close to the Philippines in the South China Sea, used to be submerged at high tide before China began a massive dredging project to turn it into an island. It is now big enough to potentially host an airstrip.
Satellite images also show what looks like a surveillance tower and multiple satellite antennas, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, part of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Under the international law of the sea, turning such features into artificial islands does not imply any rights to territorial waters around them, something the U.S. mission is designed to underline.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington said that the concept of freedom of navigation should not be used as an excuse for muscle-flexing and that the United States should “refrain from saying or doing anything provocative and act responsibly in maintaining peace and regional stability,” Chinese state media reported.
A U.S. naval destroyer sailed early Tuesday within 12 nautical miles of an artificial island built by China in the South China Sea, a U.S. defense official said, in a direct challenge to China’s territorial claims.
The USS Lassen, a guided-missile destroyer, was accompanied by Navy surveillance planes as it approached the Subi Reef in the Spratly Islands, the official said.
The mission “was completed without incident,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The decision to go ahead with the mission follows months of deliberation in Washington and is certain to anger China, which said last month it would “never allow any country” to violate its territorial waters and airspace around the islands.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had said earlier that Beijing was trying to verify whether the U.S. vessel had entered the 12-mile zone.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen anchored at Tien Sa port in Vietnam's central coastal city of Danang in 2009. (Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP/Getty Images)
“If true, we advise the U.S. to think again, not to act blindly or make trouble out of nothing,” the Foreign Ministry quoted him as saying.
The U.S. mission is also intended to test a pledge made by President Xi Jinping during his visit to Washington last month that Beijing would not militarize the islands, U.S. officials have said.
Subi Reef, which lies close to the Philippines in the South China Sea, used to be submerged at high tide before China began a massive dredging project to turn it into an island. It is now big enough to potentially host an airstrip.
Satellite images also show what looks like a surveillance tower and multiple satellite antennas, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, part of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Under the international law of the sea, turning such features into artificial islands does not imply any rights to territorial waters around them, something the U.S. mission is designed to underline.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington said that the concept of freedom of navigation should not be used as an excuse for muscle-flexing and that the United States should “refrain from saying or doing anything provocative and act responsibly in maintaining peace and regional stability,” Chinese state media reported.
