The US yesterday defied China by sending a warship close to artificial islands China is building in disputed waters, prompting Beijing to furiously denounce what it called a threat to its sovereignty.
The USS Lassen passed within 12 nautical miles (22.2km) — the normal limit of territorial waters around natural land — of at least one of the formations Beijing claims in the South China Sea.
Chinese authorities “monitored, shadowed and warned” the guided-missile destroyer in the Spratly islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) — which Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Brunei also state claims to — Beijing said.
Photo: EPA
Washington’s long-awaited move to assert freedom of navigation might escalate the dispute over the strategically vital waters, where Beijing has been transforming reefs and outcrops into artificial islands with potential military use.
China claims sovereignty over almost the whole of the area, raising concerns it could one day seek to dictate who might transit its bustling sea lanes.
The dispute has raised fears of clashes in an area through which one-third of the world’s oil passes.
Photo: Reuters
The US action was part of the nation’s “routine operations in the South China Sea in accordance with international law,” a US official said.
“We will fly, sail and operate anywhere in the world that international law allows,” he added.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang (陸慷) blasted the exercise, saying the ship had “illegally entered” the waters near the islands “without receiving permission from the Chinese government.”
Photo: CNA
Beijing “resolutely opposes any country using freedom of navigation and overflight as a pretext for harming China’s national sovereignty and security interests,” he said, adding: “[China will] staunchly defend its territorial sovereignty.”
China’s Xinhua news agency condemned a “flagrant and baseless provocation” that added to regional instability.
However, despite the Chinese rhetoric, analysts said more such operations could be expected.
Beijing’s so far limited response showed that it had had “its bluff called,” said Rory Medcalf, director of the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.
“The US, and its allies and partners, should now help the Chinese leadership in saving face, by emphasizing that freedom of navigation operations are normal, not extraordinary,” he said.
There have been repeated confrontations in the area between Chinese vessels and boats from some of its neighbors who assert rights to the waters, particularly the Philippines and Vietnam.
Both are members of ASEAN, which has long called on China to negotiate a code of conduct in the region, as are fellow claimants Brunei and Malaysia. Taiwan also states claims over part of the sea.
Manila has infuriated the world’s second-largest economy by taking the dispute to a UN tribunal, and Philippine President Benigno Aquino III said the US action demonstrated that “the balance of power says that there is not just a single voice that must be adhered to.”
Beijing’s South China Sea reclamations have been seen as an attempt to assert its claims by establishing physical facts in the water, but Aquino said: “There is no de facto changing of the reality on the ground.”
Beijing has repeatedly said the construction work is primarily for civilian purposes, and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), during a visit to Washington last month, pledged that the nation would not militarize the area.
However, satellite images of the islands published by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) show that Beijing has reclaimed millions of square meters of land in the Spratlys.
The pictures also show a host of facilities with the potential for military applications being developed, including as many as three runways, at least one of them 3,000m long.
The US, which is engaged in a foreign policy “pivot” to Asia, and China, which has the world’s largest military and is expanding the reach of its navy, are jockeying for position in the Pacific region.
Beijing regularly calls for a “new model of major country relations,” implying equality between the world’s top two economic and military powers.
The US’ operations yesterday were “not directed at any specific country,” the US official said.
“US forces operate in the Asia-Pacific region on a daily basis, including in the South China Sea,” he added.
The sail-by was “long overdue,” said Bonnie Glaser, a senior China expert at CSIS, adding that the exercises “should be done quietly, regularly and often.”
“There should be no media fanfare,” she said.
“The way this has been handled has left the Chinese believing that the US is challenging its sovereignty, rather than simply exercising freedom of the seas,” she added.
Later yesterday, Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Zhang Yesui (張業遂) summoned US ambassador to China Max Baucus. Zhang called the US patrol “extremely irresponsible” and urged the US to cease actions that harm China’s sovereignty and security interests, China Central Television reported.
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
As eight basketball-playing international students appealed to the Taiwanese basketball industry after they were excluded from the draft of an upcoming new league merging the P.League+ and the T1 League, the new league’s preparatory committee spokesperson Chang Shu-jen (張樹人) yesterday said the committee would tomorrow discuss the supplementary measures and whether the international students can join the draft. The students on Tuesday called for support on their right to play in the upcoming new league, after a merger involving the two leagues impacted their eligibility for the draft. The international players from the University Basketball Association (UBA), led by first pick prospect
WARNING: China has stepped up harassment of foreign vessels after its new regulation took effect last month, an official said, citing an incident in the Diaoyutai Islands The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday linked China’s seizure of a Taiwanese fishing vessel illegally operating in its territorial waters to Beijing’s new regulation authorizing the China Coast Guard to seize boats in waters it claims. Chinese officials boarded and then seized a Taiwanese fishing vessel operating near China’s coast close to Kinmen County late on Tuesday and took it to a Chinese port, the CGA said. The Penghu-registered squid fishing vessel Da Jin Man No. 88 (大進滿88) was boarded and seized by China Coast Guard east-northeast of Liaoluo Bay (料羅灣), 17.5 nautical miles (32.4km) from Taiwan’s restricted waters off Kinmen,
Some foreign companies are considering moving Taiwanese employees out of China after Beijing said it could impose the death penalty on “die-hard” Taiwanese independence advocates, four people familiar with the matter said. The new guidelines have caused some Taiwanese expatriates and foreign multinationals operating in China to scramble to assess their legal risks and exposure, said the people, who include a lawyer and two executives with direct knowledge of the discussions. “Several companies have come to us to assess the risks to their personnel,” said the lawyer, James Zimmerman, a Beijing-based partner at the Perkins Coie law firm. He declined to identify