The U.S. Navy on Wednesday sailed a destroyer close to China-controlled islands in the South China Sea in what Washington said was a patrol aimed at asserting freedom of navigation through the strategic seaway.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold sailed past the Paracel Islands and continued thereafter with operations in the South China Sea.
Beijing has also alarmed the U.S., Australia and New Zealand with the signing of a mutual defence agreement with the Solomon Islands, under which it could receive Chinese troops in emergencies and possibly establish a permanent Chinese military presence. China claims ownership over virtually the entire strategic waterway, through which passes around $5 trillion in global trade each year and which holds highly valuable fish stocks and undersea mineral resources. The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan also lay competing claims to the region.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin on Wednesday reiterated China's rejection of a 2016 Hague arbitration ruling brought by the Philippines under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that invalidated Beijing's vast territorial claims in the South China Sea.
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