China vows to step up air and sea patrols

CHINA: China’s military vowed yesterday 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 USChina relationship in the past few days. Experts said Washington appeared to be signalling 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 Monday, the USS Stethem, an American guided-missile destroyer, sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island, a US defence official said.

The small isle in the Paracel Islands chain is claimed and controlled by China. It was the second such US operation near Chinesecontrolled islands in six weeks.

US officials tried to portray the latest patrol as a routine, planned manoeuvre, but whatever their intentions, it has created more friction between the two countries. China’s Defence Ministry said its armed forces had dispatched two frigates, a minesweeper and two fighter jets to warn the Stethem away.

Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago resort in April and said the men enjoyed ‘‘great chemistry’’.

That marked a reversal from his tone during the presidential campaign, in which he had assailed China for what he called its unfair trade and currency practices.

But in recent weeks, the White House has become frustrated with China over its reluctance to tighten the screws on North Korea in retaliation for its nuclear and missile programme. China is North Korea’s biggest trading partner.

‘‘No more relying on the bromance between Donald and Jinping,’’ Evan Medeiros, who served as President Barack Obama’s top adviser for Asia, said. ‘‘The honeymoon is clearly over, but the next phase is less clear.’’

Last week, the US 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.

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 militarisation 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 Defence Ministry said the US 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 US of staging a ‘‘serious political and military provocation’’.

The incident came just hours before the two presidents spoke by telephone on Monday.

During the call, Trump ‘‘raised the growing threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes’’, the White House said in a statement.

Xi also used the call to express his concerns, requesting the US ‘‘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 Mara-Lago summit,’’ China’s government said.

Neither statement mentioned the tensions over the South China Sea. – Washington Post