China/South China Sea: China Lambasts ‘Illegal’ U.S. Operation in South China Sea

Oct 27, 2015 | Keith Johnson and Dan de Luce, Foreign Policy
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Chinese warships followed a U.S. destroyer sent to disputed islands in the South China Sea to assert the right to free navigation there, while Beijing warned Washington not to take further “provocative” steps that could further roil the unsettled region. After weeks of internal debate in Washington, the Pentagon dispatched early Tuesday local time the guided missile destroyer USS Lassen to within 12 miles of Subi and Mischief Reefs, a pair of underwater atolls that China has transformed into artificial islands over the past year and which now host military-grade airstrips.The U.S. hadn’t sent a vessel that close to the disputed islands in three years.