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The guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold sailed close to the Spratly Islands — referred to as the Nansha Islands in China — within the southeastern South China Sea in a so-called “freedom of navigation operation” (FONOP), the seventh Fleet assertion mentioned.
“In violation of worldwide legislation, the PRC, Vietnam, and Taiwan purport to require both permission or advance notification earlier than a army vessel engages in ‘harmless passage’ by the territorial sea of the related characteristic,” it added.
“Territorial sea” refers back to the waters inside 12 nautical miles of a nation’s shoreline as acknowledged by worldwide legislation.
The Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei additionally declare sovereignty over elements of the Spratly Islands, however the US Navy assertion didn’t say its warship was difficult any of their claims.
Saturday’s operation was the fourth FONOP difficult Chinese language claims this yr and the second such operation for the Benfold up to now 4 days, in accordance with Navy statements.
On Wednesday, it carried out the identical mission within the Paracel Islands, a sequence within the northern South China Sea referred to as the Xisha Islands in China, which can be claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.
Beijing on Wednesday reacted angrily to the US Navy’s Paracels FONOP.
“The actions of the US army have critically violated China’s sovereignty and safety, critically undermined the peace and stability of the South China Sea, and critically violated worldwide legislation and norms of worldwide relations,” Individuals’s Liberaton Military (PLA) Air Drive Col. Tian Junli, spokesman for the Southern Theater Command, mentioned in a press release.
The PLA mentioned Wednesday the US Navy was rising tensions within the area.
“Details as soon as once more present that the USA is an out-and-out ‘South China Sea Danger Maker’ and ‘Disruptors of Regional Peace and Stability,'” the PLA assertion mentioned.
However Washington says the imposition of extreme maritime claims by China and others “pose a severe risk to the liberty of the seas, together with the freedoms of navigation and overflight, free commerce and unimpeded commerce, and freedom of financial alternative.”
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