A U.S. aircraft carrier deployed to the contested South China Sea over the weekend in what the Navy called “routine operations.”
The carrier Carl Vinson, as well as other ships and assets in the strike group, began operating in the South China Sea on Saturday, according to a Navy release. The group had previously been conducting training in the water around Hawaii and Guam.
A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry reportedly denounced the deployment of U.S. assets to the body of water.
“China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and their adjacent waters,” he said, according to USA Today. “China respects and upholds the freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea which countries enjoy under international law, but firmly opposes any country’s attempt to undermine China’s sovereignty and security in the name of the freedom of navigation and overflight.”
The U.S. has previously conducted freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea, which the U.S. says is international water but China claims is its sovereign territory.
China is also building up manmade islands in the South China Sea which it claims as its own, but the Philippines, Japan and Vietnam are also all feuding over who controls islands, reefs and atolls in the region.
Following a U.S. operation near some of these disputed islands in February 2016, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called on the Navy to make missions like this more regular.
