The US military said one of its warships sailed near the disputed Scarborough Shoal claimed by China in the South China Sea on Sunday, angering Beijing at a time of tense ties between the world\u2019s two biggest economies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The busy waterway is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the US-China relationship, which include a trade war, US sanctions and Taiwan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Preble sailed within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Reef in order to challenge excessive maritime claims and preserve access to the waterways as governed by international law,\u201d said Commander Clay Doss, a spokesman for the Seventh Fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking in Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the ship had entered waters near the shoal without China\u2019s permission, and the Chinese navy had warned it to leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI must stress once again that the US warship\u2019s relevant actions have violated China\u2019s sovereignty and undermined the peace, security and good order in the relevant sea areas. China is firmly opposed to this,\u201d Lu told a daily news briefing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The United States was trying to disturb regional peace and stability by using the issue of freedom of navigation and flight, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe strongly urge the United States to immediately stop such provocative actions so as not to undermine Sino-US relations and regional peace and stability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was the second such US military operation in the South China Sea in the last month. On Wednesday, the chief of the US Navy said its freedom of navigation movements in the disputed South China Sea drew more attention than they deserved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US military has a long-standing position that its operations are carried out throughout the world, including areas claimed by allies, and they are separate from political considerations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The operation was the latest attempt to counter what Washington sees as Beijing\u2019s efforts to limit freedom of navigation in the strategic waters, where Chinese, Japanese and some Southeast Asian navies operate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China claims almost all of the strategic South China Sea and frequently lambastes the United States and its allies over naval operations near Chinese-occupied islands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have competing claims in the region.China and the United States have repeatedly traded barbs in the past over what Washington says is Beijing\u2019s militarization of the South China Sea by building military installations on artificial islands and reefs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US military said one of its warships sailed near the disputed Scarborough Shoal claimed by China in the South China Sea on Sunday, angering Beijing at a time of tense ties between the world\u2019s two biggest economies. The busy waterway is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the US-China relationship, which include […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61733,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61731\/revisions\/61733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}