The United States is undermining China’s sovereignty and security in the South China Sea and poses the biggest threat to peace and stability in the region, Tian Junli, spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army Southern Zone Combat Command, said on Monday.
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The PLA’s Southern Zone Combat Command said Monday that the US Navy littoral combat ship USS Gabrielle Giffords “illegally entered” territorial waters near China’s Nansha (Spratly) archipelago without permission from the Chinese government. It is noted that the PLA Navy organized accompanying surveillance of the American ship.
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Tian Junli stressed that the United States is maliciously creating chaos in the South China Sea, seriously undermining China’s sovereignty and security, seriously damaging stability and security in the region, and grossly violating international law and basic norms of international relations.
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“This fully demonstrates that the US poses the greatest threat to peace and stability in the South China Sea,” he said.
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The statement stressed that the troops of the PLA Southern Combat Command Zone are always on high alert and resolutely defend national sovereignty and security, as well as peace and stability in the South China Sea.
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Previously, China published the 2023 edition of its “standard map” showing the disputed areas. The map featured a “nine-dash line” representing China’s claims to most of the South China Sea. Vietnam, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines are involved to one degree or another in the dispute over these territories.
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For decades, China has been engaged in disputes with several countries in the Asia-Pacific region over the territorial ownership of a number of islands in the South China Sea, on the shelf of which significant hydrocarbon reserves have been discovered. We are talking about the Xisha archipelago (Paracel Islands), Nansha (Spratly) and Huangyan (Scarborough Reef) islands.
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The situation in the region is often complicated by the passage of US warships, which, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, violate international law and undermine China’s sovereignty and security. Despite protests from Beijing, official Washington stated that the United States would sail wherever international law permitted.
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In July 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, following a claim from the Philippines, ruled that China has no basis for territorial claims in the South China Sea. The court decided that the disputed territories of the Spratly (Nansha) archipelago are not islands and do not form an exclusive economic zone. Then Beijing responded that it did not consider the decision of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague valid and did not recognize or accept it.
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Earlier, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning, commenting on Beijing’s position regarding the situation in the South China Sea, said that China “does not need foreign land, but it will not give up an inch of its own.”
