Beijing announced plans to conduct naval exercises in the South China Sea a day after it accused the United States of threatening peace and stability by sending warships to the region.
The Chinese maritime safety administration issued a notice prohibiting entry to shipping into the northern part of the South China Sea. It gave warning of military exercises in parts of the Gulf of Tonkin until Saturday but no detail about the nature or scale of operations.
On Monday China criticised the US for sending a strike group led by the aircraft carrier
USS Theodore Roosevelt, which entered the South China Sea on Saturday on what the US navy described as “routine operations”.
“The United States frequently sends aircraft and vessels into the South China Sea to flex its muscles,” Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said. “This is not conducive to peace and stability in the region.”
China claims almost all of the South China Sea, through which £3.5 trillion of international trade passes by ship every year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan each claim some of the hundreds of reefs and small islands in the sea but since 2014 China has strengthened its claims by turning reefs into military bases.
The US says that it does not take sides but it carries out “freedom of navigation operations” to assert the right of free passage in international waters.
Rear-Admiral Doug Verissimo, commander of the Theodore Roosevelt carrier group, said: “With two thirds of the world’s trade travelling through this very important region, it is vital that we maintain our presence and continue to promote the rules-based order which has allowed us all to prosper.”
Yesterday Taiwanese fighter jets carried out combat drills after Chinese aircraft, including nuclear-capable bombers, flew into the island’s air defence zone on Saturday and Sunday.
Separately, the People’s Liberation Army has deployed intermediate-range ballistic missiles to a training area in Shandong, according to the Federation of American Scientists.