Two US Navy warships yesterday sailed near South China Sea islands claimed by China, two US officials told reporters, in a move likely to anger Beijing as US President Donald Trump seeks its continued cooperation on North Korea.
The operation was the latest attempt to counter what Washington sees as Beijing’s efforts to limit freedom of navigation in the strategic waters.
While the operation had been planned months in advance, and similar operations have become routine, it comes at a particularly sensitive time and just days after the Pentagon uninvited China from a major US-hosted naval drill.
The US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Higgins guided-missile destroyer and the Antietam, a guided-missile cruiser, came within 12 nautical miles (22.2km) of the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which are also claimed by Taiwan, among a string of islets, reefs and shoals over which China has territorial disputes with its neighbors.
The US military vessels carried out maneuvering operations near Tree (Jhaoshu, 趙述島), Lincoln, Triton (Jhongjian, 中建島) and Woody (Yongxing, 永興島) islands in the Paracels, one of the officials said.
Trump’s cancellation of a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has put further strain on US-China ties amid a trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.
Kim has reaffirmed his commitment to “complete” denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and to a planned meeting with Trump, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said yesterday.
In Washington, Trump signaled that preparations for the summit with Kim were going ahead.
Moon and Kim agreed at a surprise meeting on Saturday that a possible North Korea-US summit must be held successfully, Moon told a news conference in Seoul.
“Chairman Kim and I have agreed that the June 12 summit should be held successfully, and that our quest for the Korean Peninsula’s denuclearisation and a perpetual peace regime should not be halted,” Moon said.
The meeting was the latest dramatic turn in a week of diplomatic ups and downs surrounding the prospects for an unprecedented summit between the US and North Korea, and the strongest sign yet that the two Korean leaders are trying to keep the on-again off-again meeting on track.
A statement from the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Kim expressed “his fixed will” on the possibility of meeting Trump as previously planned.
Moon, who returned to Seoul on Thursday last week after meeting Trump in Washington in a bid to keep the high-stakes US-North Korea summit on track, said he delivered a message of Trump’s “firm will” to end the hostile relationship with North Korea and pursue bilateral economic cooperation.
While maintaining that Kim is committed to denuclearization, Moon acknowledged Pyongyang and Washington might have differing expectations of what that means, and he urged both sides to hold working-level talks to resolve their differences.
In a letter to Kim on Thursday last week, Trump had said he was canceling the planned Singapore summit, citing North Korea’s “open hostility.”
However, on Saturday, Trump said he was still looking at a June 12 date for a summit in Singapore.
“We’re doing very well in terms of the summit with North Korea,” Trump said at the White House. “It’s moving along very nicely. So we’re looking at June 12th in Singapore. That hasn’t changed. So, we’ll see what happens.”
A White House team would leave as scheduled for Singapore this weekend to prepare for the possible summit, a White House spokeswoman said on Saturday.
The Trump administration is demanding that North Korea completely and irreversibly shutter its nuclear weapons program.
Kim and Trump’s initial decision to meet followed months of war threats and insults between the leaders over the program.
Moon said he held Saturday’s impromptu meeting, the second summit between the two sides in a month, came at Kim’s request.
“Chairman Kim requested a meeting without any formality two days ago and I gladly accepted it,” Moon said, adding that the summit was in line with previous agreements for the two leaders to meet more often.
“A meeting was held because officials of both countries thought that meeting face-to-face would be better than a phone call,” Moon said.
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