China yesterday demanded the US cease what it called illegal activities in the South China Sea, as it rejected Pentagon assertions that Chinese vessels harassed a US Navy ship there.
Foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu (馬朝旭) said US complaints that five Chinese ships had harassed a US Navy ship in the South China Sea were “totally inaccurate.”
“The US Navy ship Impeccable broke international law and Chinese laws and regulations,” Ma told reporters in a news briefing.
“China has made solemn representations to the United States requesting that the US immediately stop these activities and take effective measures to avoid similar activities in the future,” he said.
The US said it had formally protested to Chinese authorities over Sunday’s incident in the South China Sea, about 120km south of China’s Hainan Island in international waters.
The dispute added a new dimension to fragile military relations between the world powers, which had enjoyed a brief period of slight optimism after they held defense talks last month.
The Pentagon said the incident saw Chinese boats move directly in front of the Impeccable, forcing it to take emergency action to avoid a collision, and then dropped pieces of wood into its path.
“This was a reckless, dangerous maneuver that was unprofessional” and violated international law, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters on Monday.
Ma rejected that account, saying it was “absolutely unacceptable to China.”
The Impeccable is a surveillance vessel designed to support anti-submarine warfare.
Ma said it violated the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea but declined to answer when repeatedly asked to specify exactly which part of the convention was broken.
The Chinese vessels included a navy intelligence ship, a government fisheries patrol vessel, a state oceanographic patrol boat and two small trawlers, the Pentagon said.
Whitman said one of the Chinese ships came within 7.5m of the Impeccable and that the Chinese crew tried to snag the cables that tow the ship’s underwater sonars.
PROVOCATIVE: Chinese Deputy Ambassador to the UN Sun Lei accused Japan of sending military vessels to deliberately provoke tensions in the Taiwan Strait China denounced remarks by Japan and the EU about the South China Sea at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, and accused Tokyo of provocative behavior in the Taiwan Strait and planning military expansion. Ayano Kunimitsu, a Japanese vice foreign minister, told the Council meeting on maritime security that Tokyo was seriously concerned about the situation in the East China and South China seas, and reiterated Japan’s opposition to any attempt to change the “status quo” by force, and obstruction of freedom of navigation and overflight. Stavros Lambrinidis, head of the EU delegation to the UN, also highlighted South China Sea
The final batch of 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks purchased from the US arrived at Taipei Port last night and were transported to the Armor Training Command in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), completing the military’s multi-year procurement of 108 of the tanks. Starting at 12:10am today, reporters observed more than a dozen civilian flatbed trailers departing from Taipei Port, each carrying an M1A2T tank covered with black waterproof tarps. Escorted by military vehicles, the convoy traveled via the West Coast Expressway to the Armor Training Command, with police implementing traffic control. The army operates about 1,000 tanks, including CM-11 Brave Tiger
China on Wednesday teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while making an allusion to Taiwan and vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims. The video, issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (遼寧), Shandong (山東) and Fujian (福建). Titled Into the Deep, it showed a 19-year-old named “Hejian” (何劍) joining the group, sparking
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said it expects its 2-nanometer (2nm) chip capacity to grow at a compound annual rate of 70 percent from this year to 2028. The projection comes as five fabs begin volume production of 2-nanometer chips this year — two in Hsinchu and three in Kaohsiung — TSMC senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer Cliff Hou (侯永清) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Silicon Valley, California, last week. Output in the first year of 2-nanometer production, which began in the fourth quarter of last year, is expected to
RSS