China yesterday accused the US of committing a “serious military provocation” by flying a US Air Force B-52 strategic bomber over a Chinese-controlled artificial island in the South China Sea.
The US is deliberately raising tensions in the disputed region where China has been aggressively asserting its claims to virtually all islands, reefs and their surrounding seas, China’s Ministry of National Defense said in a statement.
“The actions by the US side constitute a serious military provocation and are rendering more complex and even militarizing conditions in the South China Sea,” the statement said.
Washington must immediately take measures to prevent such incidents and damage to relations between the two nations’ militaries, it added.
Chinese military personnel on the island went on high alert during the Dec. 10 overflight and issued warnings demanding the aircraft leave the area, the statement said.
The ministry also said it would take whatever measures were necessary to protect China’s sovereignty and security.
The US takes no official stance on sovereignty claims in the strategically crucial sea, through which about US$5 trillion in international trade passes each year.
However, Washington insists on freedom of navigation and maintains that China’s seven newly created artificial islands do not enjoy traditional rights including a 12-nautical mile (22km) territorial limit.
There was no immediate response from the US Pentagon to the latest Chinese protest.
Media reports quoted US Department of Defense spokesman Commander Bill Urban as saying in Washington that China had raised complaints over the flight and the US was investigating.
The flight was not a “freedom of navigation” operation, Urban said — an indication that the aircraft might have strayed off course.
The US uses pre-planned freedom of navigation operations to assert its rights to “innocent passage” in other country’s territorial waters.
Freedom of navigation operations around the artificial islands appear to contradict Washington’s assertions that they have no right to territorial waters in the first place, Critics in the US have said.
China’s latest protest comes amid a simmering dispute over Washington’s approval of the first arms package offered to Taiwan in four years.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS