Two U.S. Navy ships passed by South China Sea islands on Sunday as part of the Pentagon’s months-old plan to carry out “freedom of navigation” operations in response to China’s attempts to limit international movement off the coast of the Paracel Islands, according to a new report.
The USS Higgins, a guided-missile destroyer, and USS Antietam, a guided-missile cruiser, both sailed within 12 nautical miles of the Tree, Lincoln, Triton and Woody islands.
“We conduct routine and regular Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs), as we have done in the past and will continue to do in the future,” U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a statement to Reuters, which first reported the operation.
The passage is not the first of its kind, but it does come in the midst of U.S. talks with South Korea and China as President Trump’s team attempts to salvage a summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. The U.S. and China are also in the midst of changing trade policies between two of the world’s biggest manufacturers.
Last week, the Trump administration disinvited China from the major multinational Rim of the Pacific exercise in response to China’s deployment of military systems to strategically-significant islands in the South China Sea.
China’s claims are opposed by some of its neighbors, including the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, as part of a territorial dispute in the South China Sea.
