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The US Navy has sent a destroyer close to a contested island in the South China Sea that Beijing has fortified with military installations to stake its territorial claims on the region.
On Monday, a statement from the US Navy’s 7th Fleet said the guided-missile destroyer USS Milius passed within 12 nautical miles – the internationally recognized limit of a nation’s territorial waters – of Mischief Reef in the Spratly islands, known as the Nansha Islands in China.
Mischief Reef, which lies in the Philippines Exclusive Economic Zone, is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. But Beijing has asserted its claims to the island by building it up and placing military infrastructure on it.
The US contends such actions are in violation of the Law of the Sea Convention.
“Features like Mischief Reef that are submerged at high tide in their naturally formed state are not entitled to a territorial sea. The land reclamation efforts, installations, and structures built on Mischief Reef do not change this characterization under international law,” the US 7th Fleet statement said.
