The Chinese military said Thursday it had been in pursuit of an American warship that had “illegally” entered an archipelago in the South China Sea it controlled.
This incident comes in the context of a struggle for influence between Beijing and Washington in this sea area and a strong rivalry on several other issues: Taiwan, TikTok, treatment of the Uyghur minority or even trade.
The destroyer USS Milius illegally entered the Paracels’ waters Thursday “without the consent of Chinese authorities,” said Tian Junli, spokesman for the Chinese army’s southern theater of operations, in a brief statement.
“Naval and air forces have been mobilized to track and monitor this ship, as well as issue an alert and remove it from the area,” he said.
He condemned an American maneuver that “undermines peace and stability in the South China Sea” and assured that the army “remains on guard and will take all necessary measures to firmly uphold national sovereignty”.
The Paracels, an archipelago equidistant from the Chinese and Vietnamese coasts, are a matter of dispute between Beijing and Hanoi. The Chinese Navy regained control of all the islands in 1974 after a naval conflict.
“The PRC (People’s Republic of China) statement is a lie,” said a spokesman for the US military’s Indo-Pacific Command.
“The USS Milius…is conducting routine operations in the South China Sea and has not been turned back. The United States will continue to fly, sail and operate where international law permits.”
China claims to have been the first nation to discover and name the South China Sea islands that now carry much of the trade between Asia and the rest of the world.
It thus claims a large part of the islands of this sea zone. But other neighboring countries (Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei) also have competing claims to sovereignty.
Each country controls several islands and atolls, particularly in the Spratly Archipelago further south, where incidents occur much more frequently than in the Paracels.
The United States regularly conducts operations in the South China Sea dubbed “freedom of navigation,” sending warships to challenge Chinese claims.