A United States Navy guided missile destroyer challenged Chinese claims of sovereignty in and around islands in the South China Sea on Thursday
Hong Kong , with a Navy statement saying such claims violate international law and"pose a serious threat to the freedom of the seas."
The USS Benfold sailed around the Paracel Islands, known as the Xisha Islands in China, in what the Navy calls a freedom of navigation operation , Lt. Mark Langford, spokesperson for the US 7th Fleet, said in the statement.The Paracels are a collection of 130 small coral islands and reefs in the northwestern part of the South China Sea. They have no indigenous population to speak of, only Chinese military garrisons amounting to 1,400 people, according to the CIA Factbook..
Why it matters who owns the seas 03:48But the Navy singled out China for making what it calls"straight baselines" enclosing all the waters within the island chain and said the Benfold was challenging those claims too."International law does not permit continental States, like the PRC , to establish baselines around entire dispersed island groups," the US statement said.
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