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Beijing condemns US warship challenge to South China Sea claims

The guided-missile destroyer USS Stethem has angered China after sailing through the South China Sea.

The guided-missile destroyer USS Stethem has angered China after sailing through the South China Sea. Photo: US Navy

China has condemned a US decision to assert its navigation rights through the South China Sea as a “serious political and military provocation”.

The guided-missile destroyer USS Stethem sailed near a disputed island in the South China Sea claimed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam in an operation aimed at challenging the competing claims of all three nations, a US Defense Department official said.

The vessel sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island, part of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea in what was the second “freedom-of-navigation operation” (FONOP) conducted during the presidency of Donald Trump.

A drill in late May involved a US warship sailing within 12 nautical miles of an artificial island built up by China in the South China Sea.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang was quoted by the official Xinhua news agency as saying ships and fighter planes have been dispatched to warn off the Stethem.

Lu was quoted as saying the US operation constituted a “serious political and military provocation”.

Twelve nautical miles marks the territorial limits recognised internationally.

Sailing within those 12 miles is meant to show that the US does not recognise territorial claims there.

“Unlike in the Spratlys, where China has created new artificial territory in the last several years, it has effectively controlled the Paracels since 1974,” said Mira Rapp-Hooper, a South China Sea expert at the Centre for a New American Security told Reuters.

“It claims illegal straight baselines around the Paracels, and the FONOP may have been contesting these.”

President Trump was scheduled to hold a phone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping later Monday (AEST).

President Trump has praised Mr Xi in recent months, but his administration has also stepped up pressure on Beijing over frustrations that China has not done enough to pressure North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs.

On Thursday, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on two Chinese citizens and a shipping company for helping North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, and accused a Chinese bank of laundering money for Pyongyang.

The Trump administration has also approved an arms package for Taiwan worth about $US1.4 billion ($1.82 billion), the State Department said last week.

– With AAP

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