WASHINGTON – An American warship sailed through waters off the contested Spratly Islands in the South China Sea yesterday, in the latest challenge to Beijing’s sweeping territorial claims in the region.
Guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain “asserted navigational rights and freedoms in the Spratly Islands,” the US Seventh fleet said in a statement.
“This freedom of navigation operation... upheld the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea recognized in international law by challenging restrictions on innocent passage imposed by China, Vietnam, and Taiwan,” it added.
China claims nearly all of the South China Sea, including the Spratly Islands, though Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam all claim parts of it.
The region is believed to have valuable oil and gas deposits.
Further angering those countries, and the US, Beijing has moved aggressively to build reefs into artificial islands capable of hosting military planes. – AFP, December 23, 2020
