{"id":73178,"date":"2017-07-02T10:43:29","date_gmt":"2017-07-02T14:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=73178"},"modified":"2017-07-02T10:57:08","modified_gmt":"2017-07-02T14:57:08","slug":"pentagon-sails-destroyer-near-disputed-island-in-south-china-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=73178","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon sails destroyer near disputed island in South China Sea."},"content":{"rendered":"

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Fox News<\/a>\u00a0is reporting USS Stethem, DDG 63, forward-deployed to Yokosuka, Japan, is conducting routine operations in the South China Sea. With a Chinese warship in trail, USS Stethem sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island, part of the Parcel Islands located between China and Viet Nam.<\/p>\n

Occupied by China, but also claimed by Taiwan and Viet Nam, an unnamed defense official said that sailing inside the 12 mile limit challenged all three countries, and sends the message that the United States does not recognize their claims.<\/p>\n

This is the second Freedom of Navigation Operation, or FONOPS, mission carried out by the Trump administration, the previous one conducted last October, with the intent that they become routine. The Obama administration conducted similar operations.<\/p>\n

Lt. Cmdr. Matt Knight, a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, would not confirm the operation but said in a statement to Fox News, “We conduct routine and regular FONOPs, as we have done in the past and will continue to do in the future.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Last May USS Dewey, DDG 105, sailed within about six nautical miles from Mischief Reef, one of China\u2019s man-made islands in the South China sea, and conducted man overboard drills. This signaled China that the US does not recognize its claim to the reef, one of seven China has turned into artificial islands.<\/p>\n

“Fake islands should not be believed by real people,” said the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Harry Harris, in a speech Wednesday in Brisbane, where the United States is participating in the largest ever joint military exercise with Australia, aimed in part to send a message to Beijing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

China claims most of the South China Sea, where more than $5 trillion of commerce passes through each year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fox News\u00a0is reporting USS Stethem, DDG 63, forward-deployed to Yokosuka, Japan, is conducting routine operations in … Pentagon sails destroyer near disputed island in South China Sea.<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-navy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}