China vows to increase patrols after U.S. ship sailed near disputed island
BEIJING — China’s military vowed Monday to step up air and sea patrols after an American warship sailed near a disputed island in the South China Sea in what Beijing called a “serious political and military provocation.”
The spat is the latest in a series of disputes that have roiled the U.S.-China relationship in just the past few days. Experts said Washington appeared to be signaling its growing frustration with Beijing by rolling out measures including arms sales to Taiwan and sanctions for a Chinese bank doing business with North Korea.
On Sunday, the USS Stethem, an American guided-missile destroyer, sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island, a U.S. defense official said. The small isle in the Paracel Islands chain is claimed and controlled by China. It was the second such U.S. operation near Chinese-controlled islands in six weeks.
U.S. officials tried to portray the latest patrol as a routine, planned maneuver, but whatever their intentions, it has created more friction between the two countries. China’s Defense Ministry said its armed forces had dispatched two frigates, a minesweeper and two fighter jets to warn the Stethem away.
Last week, the United States angered China by lumping the country with the world’s worst offenders on human trafficking, a downgrade from previous years. It was the new administration’s most strident public criticism yet of China’s human rights record.
Medeiros said Washington was sending a signal that policy toward China was changing, with the ultimate aim of securing more cooperation from Beijing.
The Paracels are among a group of islands and atolls in the South China Sea at the heart of ongoing tensions in Southeast Asia. China claims full sovereignty over the sea and has built military facilities on some islands.
The White House, in the Obama and Trump administrations, has seen the militarization of the South China Sea as a threat to stability in the resource-rich region, where ships from numerous countries have long fished.
China’s Defense Ministry said the United States has “seriously damaged strategic mutual trust” between the two countries by entering what it claimed were China’s territorial waters, while the country’s Foreign Ministry accused the United States of staging a “serious political and military provocation.”
The incident came just hours before Donald Trump spoke by telephone to Xi — on Sunday night in Washington, Monday morning in Beijing.
During the call, Trump “raised the growing threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs,” the White House said.
Xi also used the call to express his concerns, requesting the United States “handle the Taiwan issue appropriately,” according to a Chinese statement. China considers Taiwan a renegade province.
“Xi stressed that both China and the United States need to control the general direction of the bilateral relationship in light of the consensus reached at the Mar-a-Lago summit,” China’s government said.
U.S. officials said the Navy’s action Sunday — known as a freedom-of-navigation operation — was not aimed at making a political statement.
China has had de facto control of the Paracels since expelling Vietnam in 1974.
The Foreign Ministry said the Stethem had “trespassed” there, entering the waters “without China’s approval.” Wu Qian, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said the American action seriously damaged strategic mutual trust and military relations.
“The Chinese army will strengthen its defense capacity, increase the intensity of its sea and air patrols, and firmly defend national sovereignty and security,” he said in a statement.