Pentagon execs: US Navy to send ships near man-made islands

MANILA, Philippines — Pentagon officials told a US-based military newspaper that the United States Navy is gearing to deploy a surface ship near China's artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea.

The Navy Times on Thursday cited unnamed military sources who bared the mission to send ships within the Beijing-imposed 12-nautical-mile territorial limit around the reclaimed areas.

While the Washington Post carried a similar report citing senior Pentagon officials, the Navy Times noted that the plan only awaits approval of American President Barack Obama.

The news came days after US Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Scott Swift issued a blunt warning in a conference in Sydney against China that maritime "friction points" may extend inland.

"Today the friction points may be at sea, over the horizon, seemingly held safely at a distance from our day-to-day lives ashore," Swift said at the Royal Australian Navy's Sea Power conference earlier this week.

"Are we willing to accept the likelihood that imposed solutions to these national differences at sea will seek us out in our supposed sanctuaries ashore?" he added.

Swift also said that the Pacific Fleet will uphold freedom of navigation at sea through exercises with allies and partners in the region and by conducting freedom-of-navigation operations.

China has been criticized by Washington and its security ally, Manila, for its large-scale reclamation and construction of outposts on contested reefs that far surpassed its rival claimants' own reclamation and construction activities in past decades.

The supposed plan to send military ships to monitor China's activities in the South China Sea also came amid criticism by some policy experts.

"By avoiding Chinese-occupied reefs in the South China Sea, the US is tacitly acknowledging Beijing’s 'sovereignty' in these international waters," scholar Eddie Linczer of the Washington-based research body American Enterprise Institute said in a policy report.

Last month, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs David Shear said that the US increased its freedom-of-navigation operations in the Asia-Pacific region by 84 percent between 2013 and 2014.

Shear, however, also revealed under further questioning that none of these operations were conducted near disputed islands being militarized by China.

Linczer said while the White House has been verbally asserting a stronger stance against destabilizing activities in the disputed sea, it has taken a risk-averse approach that may signal acceptance of China's moves.

"A normalized US presence in these areas will signal US resolve to adversaries and allies alike by aligning our stated policy and actions in the region," Linczer said.