A U.S. official confirmed the operation to Fox News saying it was merely \u201cinnocent passage\u201d when the USS Hopper, a guided-missile destroyer, sailed within 12 nautical miles of the uninhabited reef, Scarborough Shoal.<\/p>\n
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said expressed dissatisfaction with the U.S. action and China would take \u201cnecessary measures to firmly safeguard its sovereignty,\u201d the South China Morning Post reported.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said China dispatched a missile frigate to identify the U.S. vessel and warned it to leave the area.<\/p>\n
We hope that the U.S. respects China\u2019s sovereignty, respects the efforts by regional countries and do not make trouble out of nothing,\u201d Wu said.<\/p>\n
The United States conducts routine and regular FONOPs (Freedom of Navigation Operations), as we have done in the past and will continue to do so in the future,\u201d Navy Lt. Cmdr. Nicole Schwegman said Saturday. \u201cWe have a comprehensive FONOP program under which U.S. forces challenge excessive maritime claims across the globe to demonstrate our commitment to uphold the rights, freedoms and lawful uses of the sea and airspace guaranteed to all nations under international law. FONOPs are not about any one country, nor are they about making political statements. FONOPS are designed to comply with international law and not threaten the lawful security interest of coastal States.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Twelve nautical miles from land is internationally recognized as the territorial limit for all nations. Since the U.S. doesn\u2019t honor many of the claims by China in the South China Sea, Freedom of Navigation Operations are conducted by Navy warships.<\/p>\n
The South China Sea has crucial shipping lanes, rich fishing grounds and potential oil, gas and other mineral deposits. China claims most of it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fox News reports USS Hopper, a guided missile destroyer, sailed near a contested reef near the … US destroyer sails near contested reef in South China Sea, angering Beijing<\/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":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foreign-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77265","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=77265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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