|
Senior Pentagon Official Says U.S. Navy Will Keep Challenging China in South China Sea
[Breitbart] Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Randall Schriver said earlier this week at a think-tank event that the United States Navy will continue to challenge China’s claims over the South China Sea, which are disputed by six other nations in the region.He said the U.S. will continue "freedom of navigation" operations that include sailing U.S. Navy ships through the South China Sea, and raised the prospect of other countries joining in on "presence activities." "I think what you’ll see is certainly a continuation of freedom of navigation. I think you’ll see perhaps more countries joining in presence activities ‐ which if not a 12-nautical mile challenge presence in the South China Sea ‐ is important because China claims the whole thing through the 9-dash line," Schriver told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday. Freedom of navigation operations involve U.S. Navy ships sailing through the South China Sea within 12-nautical miles of territory claimed by China, to illustrate that the waters remain open to international passage. Typically, countries consider waters within 12-nautical miles to be their territorial waters, and by sailing through it, the U.S. Navy exhibits they are not Chinese territory. The "9-dash line" refers to an area marked with nine dashes that China claims, that encompasses the entire South China Sea. Posted by: Besoeker 2018-08-12 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=520551 |