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本帖最后由 lite1067 于 2015-10-26 09:02 PM 编辑
对市场会有什么影响？
WASHINGTON—A U.S. Navy destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of artificial islands claimed by China, in a direct challenge to Beijing that raises the stakes in an expanding, multination territorial dispute.
An American defense official confirmed Monday that the U.S. Navy ship navigated through the waters around at least one of the land masses to which China lays claim within the Spratly chain of islands in the South China Sea, crossing an area that China maintains is part of its sovereign territory.
International convention allows countries to claim territorial waters within 12 nautical miles of their coastal territory, but the U.S. and many other countries don’t recognize China’s claims to almost all of the South China Sea. Thus U.S. officials labeled Monday’s operation a “freedom of navigation” exercise.
Several U.S. defense officials said the navigation through the islands wasn’t a one-time operation, and that the U.S. Navy would continue to sail through waters claimed by Beijing.
China’s foreign ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request to comment but Beijing has often said that it has “undisputable sovereignty” over all the islands of the South China Sea and their adjacent waters. It says the artificial islands it has been building will be used for civilian activities, such as weather monitoring and search and rescue, as well as for military purposes.
While the U.S. has long said it doesn't take sides in the territorial dispute over the Spratlys, the American ship’s passage through the area is significant as a signal of Washington’s view that some of China’s artificial islands have no right to territorial waters because they were built on reefs that used to be submerged at high tide.
President Barack Obama has pledged to uphold the right of American vessels to travel through international waters despite what the U.S. sees as unfounded claims by other countries, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday.
“This is a critically important principle, particularly in the South China Sea, because there are billions of dollars of commerce that flow through that region of the world every year, and maybe even more than that,” Mr. Earnest said.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who has publicly scolded Beijing for its island-building campaign, has been blunt on the issue, saying the U.S. would sail its ships wherever and whenever it wants within international waters. Senior U.S. military officials, including Adm. Harry Harris, the head of U.S. Pacific Command, have urged the U.S. to proceed with the operation.
“I agree that the South China Sea is no more China’s than the Gulf of Mexico is Mexico’s,” Adm. Harris told a Senate panel in September. “I think that we must exercise our freedom of navigation throughout the region.”
But despite long-standing expectations of a White House signal to Beijing, the National Security Council hadn’t given the go-ahead until now. Some believed the White House wanted to wait until Mr. Xi’s visit to Washington concluded last month.
The dispute has simmered most of this year as the American military has watched China expand the chain of islands in the South China Sea by using dredged material from the ocean floor to build or expand islands, using submerged reefs and rocks.
China has amassed thousands of acres of these man-made structures, according to a Pentagon report issued in August. Beijing says the islands are for both military and nonmilitary use, including to house fishermen.
But defense officials believe Beijing’s ambitions are more alarming, and point to China’s construction of airstrips, military facilities like barracks and ports.
In May, The Wall Street Journal reported that Beijing’s military, the People’s Liberation Army, had placed mobile artillery units atop one of the islands, known as Johnson Reef. Those artillery units have since been removed or obscured from view.
In September, Mr. Xi surprised U.S. officials on his visit to Washington by declaring that China didn’t “intend to militarize” the islands. But his statement has remained puzzling since Beijing has done little to clarify his remarks.
Washington fears that Beijing will use the islands for military purposes that could cause instability in one of the world’s busiest commercial shipping routes, with as much as $5 trillion annually passing through the region.
In September, a flotilla of five Chinese warships came within 12 nautical miles of the Aleutian Islands in the Bering Sea, a rare foray into U.S. territorial waters. Defense Department officials said Sept. 6 that the Chinese navy ships had passed through the waters but they had complied with international law and didn’t act in any threatening way.
The ships undertook what is known as “innocent passage,” a legal concept in which ships pass through another nation’s territorial waters. But the passage was seen as significant at the time given that Beijing has long objected to the U.S. Navy transiting China’s territorial waters without prior permission or even sailing near them.
That Chinese passage though the Aleutians was different from the U.S. operation Monday in the South China Sea because “innocent passage” by a U.S. ship in the area could imply recognition that China has territorial waters there.
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狗仔卡
发表于 2015-10-26 09:01 PM
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发表于 2015-10-26 09:53 PM
发表于 2015-10-26 10:10 PM
