WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A US Navy destroyer sailed near islands claimed by China in the South China Sea on Wednesday (Aug 28), the US military said, a move likely to anger Beijing at a time of rising tensions between the world's two largest economies.
The busy waterway is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the US-Chinese relationship, which include an escalating trade war, American sanctions on China's military and US relations with Taiwan.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that China had denied a request for a U.S. Navy warship to visit the Chinese port city of Qingdao.
The US Navy vessel Wayne E. Meyer, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, carried out the operation, travelling within 12 nautical miles (22 km) of Fiery Cross and Mischief Reefs, Commander Reann Mommsen, a spokeswoman for the Japan-based US Navy's Seventh Fleet, said.
The operation was conducted "to challenge excessive maritime claims and preserve access to the waterways as governed by international law," Mommsen said.
The US military operation comes amid an increasingly bitter trade war between China and the United States that sharply escalated on Friday, with both sides levelling more tariffs on each other's exports.
The US military has a long-standing position that its operations are carried out worldwide, including areas claimed by allies, and are separate from political considerations.
Chinese military spokesman Li Huamin said in a statement early on Thursday (Aug 29) the US vessel had encroached upon Chinese territorial waters near the Nansha Islands without the government's permission and had been warned to leave.
"The facts prove that the United States' so-called 'freedom of navigation' is actually an assertion of maritime hegemony that ignores international law, seriously harms China's sovereignty and security interests, and seriously harms peace and stability in the South China Sea region," Li said.
China and the United States have traded barbs in the past over what Washington has said is Beijing's militarisation of the South China Sea by building military installations on artificial islands and reefs.
China's claims in the South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes each year, are contested by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
Beijing says its construction is necessary for self-defence and that the United States is responsible for ratcheting up tensions by sending warships and military planes close to islands that Beijing claims.
China's 2019 defence spending will rise 7.5 per cent from 2018, according to a budget report. Its military build-up has raised concerns among neighbours and Western allies, particularly with China becoming more assertive in territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas and over Taiwan, a self-ruled territory Beijing claims as its own.
The US military last year put countering China, along with Russia, at the centre of a new national defence strategy, shifting priorities after more than a decade-and-a-half of focusing on the fight against Islamist militants.
Vice President Mike Pence, in a visit to Iceland next week, will also have talks about "incursions" into the Arctic Circle by China and Russia, a senior Trump administration official said on Wednesday.
