The US Navy said one of its destroyers had sailed close to the Chinese-controlled Paracel Islands in the South China Sea on Friday, asserting international freedom of navigation rights in the contested waters.
READ: PH eyes US rocket launcher for WPS
The USS Wayne E. Meyer guided-missile destroyer passed through the area of the Paracels east of Vietnam and South of China’s Hainan Island without requesting permission from Beijing, or from Hanoi or Taipei, which also claim ownership of the archipelago.
The move could add to the tensions between the US and China, now bogged down in a grinding trade war, as Beijing pushes to expand its military reach globally.
“USS Wayne E. Meyer challenged the restrictions on innocent passage imposed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam and also contested China’s claim to straight baselines enclosing the Paracel Islands,” said Commander Reann Mommsen, spokesperson for the US 7th Fleet based in Japan.
“With these baselines, China has attempted to claim more internal waters, territorial sea, exclusive economic zone, and continental shelf than it is entitled under international law.”
China has laid claim to nearly all of the South China Sea and has built numerous military outposts on the small islands and atolls of the region, angering other claimants Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan.
In recent months, the US military has stepped up its “freedom of navigation operations” or “FONOPS” in the region, irking Beijing but not sparking any direct confrontation thus far.
China has effectively drawn a property line around the whole of the Paracels archipelago—which it calls the Xisha Islands—to claim the entire territory.
But the United States says that does not accord with international law on archipelagos and territorial seas.
The FONOPS “demonstrate that the United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows—regardless of the location of excessive maritime claims and regardless of current events,” Mommsen said.
Meanwhile, Malacañang spokesman Salvador Panelo lashed out at Vice President Leni Robredo’s statement that President Rodrigo Duterte had set aside the country’s winning arbitral ruling on the disputed South China Sea, by giving way to push for the exploration deal with China.
READ: Rody ready to go to war in defense of Sulu Sea but…
Panelo said Robredo’s statement was another way to find fault with the President and underlined what he called Robredo’s habit of engaging in useless and unproductive semantics.
In a statement, the Palace official explained Duterte remarks to first set aside the ruling was to focus instead on exploring something that would benefit the people as the administration continued to engage China in negotiations.
“Notwithstanding this impasse with China on our territorial conflict, wisdom, prudence, and pragmatism dictate that we forge in strengthening our foreign relations on uncontested matters that will invariably provide mutual benefit to our countries. Of particular note is the joint exploration of our natural resources in the West Philippine Sea,” he said in a statement.
“As (a) matter of sound foreign policy, our difference with China, or with any other country for the matter, cannot be the sum total of our relationship with it or with any other,” he added.
Panelo described Robredo’s statement as habitual political attack against the Duterte administration that was not being given attention by the public.
“What is ‘profoundly disappointing and extremely irresponsible,’ to borrow her words, is her evolving penchant of finding fault in every word the President says, as well as issuing misplaced and flamboyant remarks against it,” he said.
The Palace official advised Robredo to be more “circumspect in issuing statements on the matter and rely more on her instinct as a lawyer and mother protective of those she is constitutionally tasked to shepherd.”
He said Robredo should understand the country’s complex relations with China on the issue of territory.
He added: “The problem with my friend Vice President Leni Robredo is the inability of her political advisers to comprehend the complexities of our current situation with China. She may want to change them with some erudite intellectuals knowledgeable in geopolitics and in the art of diplomacy.”
The Vice President has earlier questioned the President’s plan to set aside the arbitral ruling to give way to the joint oil and gas exploration with China in the disputed South China Sea.
The chief executive added the issue on the exclusive economic zone was part of the ruling “which we will ignore to come up with an economic activity.”
