The US Navy said that one of its destroyers on Friday sailed close to the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) in the South China Sea, asserting international freedom of navigation rights in the contested waters.
The USS Wayne E. Meyer guided-missile destroyer passed through the area of the Paracels east of Vietnam and South of China’s Hainan Island without requesting permission from Taipei, Beijing or Hanoi, all three of which claim ownership of the archipelago.
“USS Wayne E. Meyer challenged the restrictions on innocent passage imposed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam and also contested China’s claim to straight baselines enclosing the Paracel Islands,” said Commander Reann Mommsen, spokeswoman for the US Seventh Fleet based in Japan.
“With these baselines, China has attempted to claim more internal waters, territorial sea, exclusive economic zone and continental shelf than it is entitled under international law,” Mommsen said.
China has laid claim to nearly all of the South China Sea and has built numerous military outposts on the small islands and atolls of the region, angering other claimants Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
In the past few months, the US military has stepped up its “freedom of navigation operations” in the region, irking Beijing, but not sparking any direct confrontation.
China has effectively drawn a property line around the whole of the Paracels archipelago to claim the entire territory.
However, the US says that does not accord with international law on archipelagos and territorial seas.
The freedom of navigation operations “demonstrate that the United States will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows — regardless of the location of excessive maritime claims and regardless of current events,” Mommsen said.
GET TO SAFETY: Authorities were scrambling to evacuate nearly 700 people in Hualien County to prepare for overflow from a natural dam formed by a previous typhoon Typhoon Podul yesterday intensified and accelerated as it neared Taiwan, with the impact expected to be felt overnight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, while the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration announced that schools and government offices in most areas of southern and eastern Taiwan would be closed today. The affected regions are Tainan, Kaohsiung and Chiayi City, and Yunlin, Chiayi, Pingtung, Hualien and Taitung counties, as well as the outlying Penghu County. As of 10pm last night, the storm was about 370km east-southeast of Taitung County, moving west-northwest at 27kph, CWA data showed. With a radius of 120km, Podul is carrying maximum sustained
Tropical Storm Podul strengthened into a typhoon at 8pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with a sea warning to be issued late last night or early this morning. As of 8pm, the typhoon was 1,020km east of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving west at 23kph. The storm carried maximum sustained winds of 119kph and gusts reaching 155kph, the CWA said. Based on the tropical storm’s trajectory, a land warning could be issued any time from midday today, it added. CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said Podul is a fast-moving storm that is forecast to bring its heaviest rainfall and strongest
TRAJECTORY: The severe tropical storm is predicted to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday and Thursday, and would influence the nation to varying degrees, a forecaster said The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said it would likely issue a sea warning for Tropical Storm Podul tomorrow morning and a land warning that evening at the earliest. CWA forecaster Lin Ting-yi (林定宜) said the severe tropical storm is predicted to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday and Thursday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving west at 21kph and packing sustained winds of 108kph and gusts of up to 136.8kph, the CWA said. Lin said that the tropical storm was about 1,710km east of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, with two possible trajectories over the next one
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday criticized the nuclear energy referendum scheduled for Saturday next week, saying that holding the plebiscite before the government can conduct safety evaluations is a denial of the public’s right to make informed decisions. Lai, who is also the chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), made the comments at the party’s Central Standing Committee meeting at its headquarters in Taipei. ‘NO’ “I will go to the ballot box on Saturday next week to cast a ‘no’ vote, as we all should do,” he said as he called on the public to reject the proposition to reactivate the decommissioned
RSS