BEIJING—China’s military said on Tuesday it drove away a U.S. guided-missile cruiser that “illegally intruded” into waters near the South China Sea’s Spratly Islands, an assertion the U.S. Navy disputed.
The ship in question, the USS Chancellorsville guided-missile cruiser, had recently sailed through the Taiwan Strait.
In a statement, the U.S. Navy said the Chinese statement was “false,” calling it “the latest in a long string of PRC actions to misrepresent lawful U.S. maritime operations.”
“USS Chancellorsville (CG 62) conducted this FONOP in accordance with international law and then continued on to conduct normal operations in waters where high seas freedoms apply,” the statement said, referring to a “freedom of navigation operation” by its military acronym. “The United States is defending every nation’s right to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows.”
The Chinese regime claims nearly all of the South China Sea, and the waters have become one of many flashpoints in the testy relationship between it and the United States.
The United States rejects what it calls the Chinese regime’s unlawful territorial claims in the resource-rich waters.
U.S. warships have passed through the South China Sea with increasing frequency in recent years in an effort to show the Chinese claims are not valid.
The Chinese military said its troops would remain on high alert, the Southern Theatre Command wrote on its WeChat social media account.
