US to operate ‘wherever’ law allows in South China Sea

BEIJING: The US military will continue to operate “wherever” international law allows, a top US admiral said in Beijing yesterday, a week after America infuriated China by sailing close to artificial islands it is building in the South China Sea.

“International seas and airspace belong to everyone and are not the dominion of any single nation,” Admiral Harry Harris said, according to prepared remarks for a speech at the Stanford Centre at Peking University.

“Our military will continue to fly, sail, and operate whenever and wherever international law allows. The South China Sea is not – and will not – be an exception.”

Harris is the commander of the US Pacific Command and his public declaration in the Chinese capital is a mark of US resolve over the strategically vital waterway, where Beijing has built up rocks and reefs into artificial islands with facilities for military use.

Beijing claims sovereignty over almost the whole sea on the basis of a segmented line that first appeared on Chinese maps in the 1940s.

Harris said the claim as “ambiguous” and based on “the so-called 9-dash line”.

Washington has repeatedly said it does not recognise Chinese claims to territorial waters around the artificial islands.

The USS Lassen guided missile destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of at least one of the land formations in the disputed Spratly Islands last week.

Washington says it takes no position on sovereignty disputes in the region and that the sail-by was intended to protect freedom of navigation under international law, which it sees as potentially threatened by China’s activities.

The USS Lassen’s mission was part of the US’s “routine freedom of navigation operations”, Harris said, intended to “prevent the decomposition of international laws and norms”.

“We’ve been conducting freedom of navigation operations all over the world for decades, so no one should be surprised by them,” he said.

Harris’s comments come as part of a continued dialogue between China and the US over the contentious area. – AFP