The B-52s on a routine mission in the South China Sea, near artificial Chinese-built islands - Pentagon.

msn

U.S. bombers flew near Chinese-built island in South China Sea - Pentagon

Reuters

By Yeganeh Torbati and David Alexander

© Reuters/CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative/DigitalGlobe/Handout via Reuters Subi reef, 

 located in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, is shown in this handout Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Asia Maritime Transparency…

WASHINGTON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Two U.S. B-52 strategic bombers flew near artificial Chinese-built islands in the South China Sea this week and were contacted by Chinese ground controllers but continued their mission undeterred, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

The latest U.S. patrol in the disputed South China Sea occurred in advance of President Barack Obama's visit to the region next week to attend Asia-Pacific summits where he is expected the reassert Washington's commitment to freedom of navigation and overflight in the area.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year, and the United States has said it will continue conducting patrols to assure unimpeded passage. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims in the region.
In the latest mission, which occurred overnight on Nov. 8-9, the bombers flew "in the area" of the Spratly Islands but did not come within the 12-nautical-mile zones that China claims as territory around islands it has built in the chain, said Commander Bill Urban, a Pentagon spokesman.
"The B-52s were on a routine mission in the SCS (South China Sea)," taking off from and returning to Guam, Urban said.

Chinese ground controllers contacted the bombers but the aircraft continued their mission unabated, Urban said.

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Australia’s Defense Minister Marise Payne : Two Australian warships will join the Chinese Navy in the South China Sea to hold naval exercises in disputed waters there

Press TV

Australia vessels to join Chinese navy in exercises

Thu Oct 29, 2015 7:30AM

Australia’s Defense Minister Marise Payne

Two Australian warships will join the Chinese Navy in the South China Sea to hold naval exercises in disputed waters there, Australia’s Defense Minister Marise Payne says.
Anzac-class HMAS Stuart and HMAS Arunta frigates of the Royal Australian Navy will soon arrive at China’s main base of Zhanjiang in a port call ahead of the drills scheduled for early next week, Payne said on Thursday.

“The Royal Australian Navy has a long history of engagement with regional navies and regularly conducts port visits and exercises – including in China,” she said.

The development comes just days after a US Navy guided-missile destroyer entered waters close to islands where China is said to be doing construction work in the sea.

Payne dismissed any changes or delays to the schedule of the drills “since the United States activity” in the South China Sea. She, however, stopped short of providing any information about the exact location of the exercises.

This file photo shows the Anzac-class HMAS Stuart frigate of the Royal Australian Navy.

On October 27, the USS Lassen sailed near what is referred to in the West as the Spratly Islands archipelago, a disputed group of hundreds of reefs, islets, atolls and islands in the South China.

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China: Will respond to US ships with all necessary means

SFGATE

 

Updated 3:40 am, Thursday, October 29, 2015

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Photo: Eugene Hoshiko, AP 

 

In this April 8, 2008, file photo, guided missile destroyer USS Lassen arrives at the Shanghai International Passenger Quay in Shanghai, China, for a scheduled port visit. Just two days after the USS Lassen sailed past one of China's artificial islands in the South China Sea in a challenge to Chinese sovereignty claims, Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Yang Yujun said Thursday that China will take "all necessary" measures in response to any future U.S. Navy incursions into what it considers its territorial waters around the islands.

BEIJING (AP) — China's military will take "all necessary" measures in response to any future U.S. Navy incursions into what it considers its territorial waters around islands in the South China Sea, a Defense Ministry spokesman said Thursday.

The statement by Col. Yang Yujun followed the sailing of a U.S. guided missile destroyer within the 12-nautical mile (22-kilometer) territorial limit of one of the islands newly created by China in the strategically vital region. The U.S. refuses to recognize the man-made islets as deserving of sovereign territory status.

The Chinese side took no forceful action during the USS Lassen's sail-by on Tuesday, but strenuously protested the maneuver. China's reaction fits the pattern in similar such incidents in recent years. Yang offered no details on how Beijing might respond differently in the future.

"We would urge the U.S. not to continue down the wrong path. But if the U.S. side does continue, we will take all necessary measures according to the need," Yang said. China's resolve to safeguard its national sovereignty and security interests is "rock-solid," he added.

China claims virtually the entire South China Sea and its islands, reefs and atolls as its sovereign territory, an assertion challenged by five other regional governments.

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U.S. Navy destroyer patrols near islands built by China in South China Sea

Photographer

US NAVY

 

Monday, October 26, 2015

USS Lassen (DDG 82), (R) transits in formation with ROKS Sokcho (PCC 778) during exercise Foal Eagle 2015, in waters east of the Korean Peninsula, in this March 12, 2015, handout photo provided by the U.S. Navy. REUTERS/U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Martin Wright/Handout via Reuters

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Yahoo News

By Tim Kelly, Andrea Shalal and David Brunnstrom  

 

TOKYO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy sent a guided-missile destroyer within 12 nautical miles of artificial islands built by China in the South China Sea on Tuesday, a U.S. defense official said, in a challenge to China's territorial claims in the area.

The official said the USS Lassen was sailing near Subi and Mischief reefs in the Spratly archipelago, features that were submerged at high tide before China began a massive dredging project to turn them into islands in 2014.

"The operation has begun ... It will be complete within a few hours," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The mission would be the start of a series of challenges to China's territorial claims in one of the world's busiest sea lanes, another U.S. defense official said.

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China's Man-Made Military Island Outposts, The Dramatic Before And After Photos

 

 

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/22/2015 20:28 -0400

 

 

There’s been no shortage of coverage both in these pages and elsewhere of China’s unprecedented land reclamation efforts in the Spratlys.

While China isn’t the first country to create new territory in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, the scope of Beijing’s development (some 3,000 acres) sets it apart and the construction of air strips and ports (not to mention the alleged stationing of artillery) has some of Washington’s regional allies especially concerned.





Fiery Cross:



Mischief:

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NBC News

Sep 18 2015, 5:04 am ET

China 'Concerned' at Call for U.S. Navy Patrol of Disputed Islands

by Reuters

 

 

Chinese dredging vessels are purportedly seen in the waters around Mischief Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in this still image from video taken by a P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft provided by the United States Navy May 21, 2015. REUTERS/U.S. Navy/Handout via Reuters Reuters

China said Friday it was "extremely concerned" about a suggestion from a top U.S. commander that U.S. ships and aircraft should challenge China's claims in the South China Sea by patrolling close to artificial islands it has built.

China's increasingly assertive action to back up its sovereignty claims in the South China Sea have included land reclamation and the construction of ports and air facilities on several reefs in the Spratly Islands.

The work has rattled China's neighbors, in particular U.S. ally the Philippines, and raised concern in the United States.

China says it has irrefutable sovereignty over the Spratly Islands and no hostile intent.
Admiral Harry Harris, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, told a Senate hearing Thursday that China's building of three airfields on small islands and their further militarization was of "great concern militarily" and posed a threat to all countries in the region.




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Philippines drops food to troops after China 'blockade'

by Staff Writers Manila (AFP) March 13, 2014

The incident took place at Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly island group, which is around 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the western Philippine island of Palawan and which Manila insists is part of its continental shelf.

The Philippine military said Thursday it had evaded a Chinese sea blockade by using an airplane to drop food to soldiers on a tiny and remote South China Sea shoal claimed by both countries.
The incident was the latest to escalate tensions between the Asian nations over their conflicting claims to parts of the South China Sea, a major sealane and rich fishing ground that is believed to hold vast mineral resources.
"We confirmed there was an airdrop of food to our troops," Defence Department spokesman Peter Paul Galvez said.
He said the airdrop was "via airplane," but did not say when it occurred nor give further details.
The incident took place at Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly island group, which is around 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the western Philippine island of Palawan and which Manila insists is part of its continental shelf.
The shoal is more than 1,000 kilometres from Hainan island, the closest Chinese landmass, but China claims nearly all of the South China Sea based on what it says are historical records.
A tiny unit of Filipino marines live on the BRP Sierra Madre, a decrepit, beached former World-War-II US navy transport ship that was transferred to the Philippine navy and run aground on the shoal in the 1990s.

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US vows to defend Japan against China

by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Feb 07, 2014

Secretary of State John Kerry vowed Friday that the United States would defend Japan against attack including over islands claimed by China as tensions boil between the Asian powers.
Kerry, who said he would visit China next week, met in Washington with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and reaffirmed the 1960 treaty that commits the United States to protect its ally.
"That includes with respect to the South China Sea," he said, before correcting himself to say the East China Sea, where China and Japan have conflicting claims.
Fears of conflict rose in November when China imposed an Air Defense Identification Zone over much of the East China Sea.
Beijing says it now requires notification from planes crossing a group of islands administered by Tokyo, known in Japanese as the Senkaku and in Chinese as Diaoyu.
"The United States neither recognizes nor accepts China's declared East China Sea ADIZ and the United States has no intention of changing how we conduct operations in the region," Kerry said.
The United States and its allies are increasingly concerned China will take similar action in the South China Sea, where the Philippines in particular has voiced worries about Beijing's maritime claims.
Kishida, for his part, extended an invitation for President Barack Obama to make a state visit to Japan.
Diplomats say Obama is likely to visit Japan on an April tour of Asia, although Kerry is not expected to stop in Tokyo on his upcoming trip.

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 Beijing denounces 'groundless' US remarks on South China Sea

Beijing (AFP) Feb 07, 2014 - Beijing on Friday dismissed a US official's warning against possible Chinese expansion in the skies over the South China Sea, calling the remarks "irresponsible".The United States had urged Beijing to clarify or adjust its claims in the South China Sea, calling for a peaceful solution to one of Asia's growing flashpoints."Some US officials make groundless accusations against China," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters at a regular briefing.
He added that "right-wing forces in Japan" were responsible for stirring up "rumours" on the issue.
Hong was responding to comments made on Wednesday by the top US diplomat for the region, Danny Russel, warning Beijing not to move to impose an air zone over the territory.
Beijing claims the South China Sea almost in its entirety, even areas a long way from its shoreline, but portions are also claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
Russel supported the Philippines' right to take its case to a United Nations tribunal -- a move last year that was denounced by China -- as part of efforts to find a "peaceful, non-coercive" solution.
"China's lack of clarity with regard to its South China Sea claims has created uncertainty in the region and limits the prospect for achieving mutually agreeable resolution or equitable joint development arrangements," Russel told a congressional committee.
Japan's Asahi Shimbun, citing Chinese government sources, recently reported that Beijing had drafted proposals for the new air zone, with tensions already high over its imposition of an air zone above islands administered by Japan in the East China Sea.
That Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ), set up in November, immediately drew condemnation from Washington as well as Tokyo, with which China is embroiled in a separate territorial row.
"We neither recognize nor accept China's declared ADIZ," Russel, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told the committee.
He added that the US had "made clear to China that it shouldn't attempt to implement that ADIZ and should refrain from taking similar actions elsewhere in the region".
Hong on Friday reiterated Beijing's position that "as a sovereign state, China has the right to act" in order to defend its air security.
"No country has the right to make irresponsible remarks on that," he said of Russel's comments.


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ABC.net.au/news/Australia Network News

Beijing denounces 'groundless' US remarks on South China Sea

Posted Sat 8 Feb 2014, 4:58am AEDT

Photo: The city of Sansha on an island in the disputed Paracel chain, which China now considers part of Hainan province. (AFP: STR)

Beijing has dismissed a US official's warning against possible Chinese expansion in the skies over the South China Sea, calling the remarks "irresponsible".

The United States had called on Beijing to clarify or adjust its territorial claims in the South China Sea.
"Some US officials make groundless accusations against China," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.
He added that "right-wing forces in Japan" were responsible for stirring up "rumours" on the issue.
Mr Hong was responding to comments made on Wednesday by the top US diplomat for the region, Danny Russel, warning Beijing not to move to impose an air zone over the territory.
Beijing claims the South China Sea almost in its entirety, but portions are also claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
Mr Russel supported the Philippines' right to take its case to a United Nations tribunal, a move last year that was denounced by China, as part of efforts to find a "peaceful, non-coercive" solution.
"China's lack of clarity with regard to its South China Sea claims has created uncertainty in the region and limits the prospect for achieving mutually agreeable resolution or equitable joint development arrangements," Mr Russel, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told a congressional committee.


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