We’ll do it again, says US on ‘sail-past’

WASHINGTON – The United States has downplayed the significance of sending a Navy warship within 12 miles of artificial islands built by China in the South China Sea, and has promised to do it again.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said it was a routine freedom of navigation operation in international waters and “shouldn’t be construed as a threat by anybody.”

“There’s no reason that US Navy operations in international waters, in accordance with international law, should have any negative effect on our relationship with any country around the world,” Kirby said.

He said setting this aside the US-China relationship is vitally important and one that Washington wants to see grow and prosper.

“The US-China relationship is vitally important and one that we want to see continue to improve and to grow for the benefit of both our countries, not to mention the region,” Kirby told reporters in Washington.

“So again, without speaking to specific operations, it’s the Secretary’s desire that our relationship with China will continue to deepen,” he said referring to Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

Carter, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, initially would only say the US Navy had conducted operations in the South China Sea.

But under questioning from lawmakers, he said the USS Lassen had passed within 12 miles of a Chinese artificial island.

It was the first time a US warship passed close to a Chinese-claimed artificial island since 2012.

The sail-past infuriated China which summoned the American ambassador to protest the operation, which it saw as direct challenge to Chinese sovereignty claims.

Sen. John McCain praised the decision to send a warship on a patrol in the South China Sea, saying it was a step that should have been taken long ago. “This decision is long overdue,” he said.

The move was quickly blasted by Chinese officials who saw it as a violation of Chinese territorial waters.

“The Chinese side strongly urges the American side to take China’s solemn representations seriously, put right mistakes, refrain from any dangerous or provocative actions detrimental to China’s sovereignty and security interests, and honor its commitment of not taking sides on disputes over territorial sovereignty so as to avoid any further damage to China-US relations and regional peace and stability,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said, according to a statement posted on the Chinese Foreign Ministry website.

China’s Foreign Ministry said on its website yesterday that Executive Vice Minister Zhang Yesui told Max Bacaus that the US had acted in defiance of repeated Chinese objections and had threatened China’s sovereignty and security.

While offering no details, Zhang said Tuesday’s “provocative” maneuver also placed personnel and infrastructure on the island in jeopardy.

China was “extremely dissatisfied and resolutely opposed” the US actions, the ministry said. The US State Department declined to confirm the Tuesday meeting, or comment on any remarks made on the issue.

China says authorities monitored and warned the destroyer USS Lassen as it entered what China claims as a 12-mile or 21-kilometer territorial limit around Subi Reef in the Spratly Islands archipelago, a group of reefs, islets, and atolls where the Philippines has competing claims.

The sail-past fits a US policy of pushing back against China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea. US ally the Philippines welcomed the move as a way of helping maintain “a balance of power.”

Since 2013, China has accelerated the creation of new outposts by piling sand atop reefs and atolls then adding buildings, ports and airstrips big enough to handle bombers and fighter jets — activities seen as attempting to change the territorial status by altering the geography.

Navy officials had said the sail-past was necessary to assert the US position that China’s man-made islands cannot be considered sovereign territory with the right to surrounding territorial waters.

International law permits military vessels the right of “innocent passage” in transiting other country’s seas without notification, although China’s Foreign Ministry labeled the ship’s actions as illegal.

The US says it doesn’t take a position on sovereignty over the South China Sea but insists on freedom of navigation and overflight. About 30 percent of global trade passes through the South China Sea, which also has rich fishing grounds and a potential wealth of undersea mineral deposits.

China says it respects the right of navigation but has never specified the exact legal status of its maritime claims. China says virtually all of the South China Sea belongs to it, while the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam claim either parts or all of it.

Beijing’s response closely mirrored its actions in May when a navy dispatcher warned off a US Navy P8-A Poseidon surveillance aircraft as it flew over Fiery Cross Reef, where China has conducted extensive reclamation work.

A US Defense Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the Lassen’s movements, said the patrol was completed without incident. Pentagon spokesman Navy Cmdr. Bill Urban declined to comment.

The Obama administration has long said it will exercise a right to freedom of navigation in any international waters.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said China adhered to international law regarding freedom of navigation and flight, but “resolutely opposes the damaging of China’s sovereignty and security interests in the name of free navigation and flight.”

“China will firmly deal with provocations from other countries,” the statement said. - With AP