TOKYO (Reuters) – Two U.S. Navy aircraft carriers are conducting drills in the disputed South China Sea in full view of Chinese naval vessels seen near the flotilla, the commander of one of the aircraft carriers, the USS Nimitz.
FILE PHOTO: Sailors drive the rails as the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier with Carrier Strike Group 11, and about 7,500 sailors and airmen depart for a 6-month deployment to the western Pacific from San Diego, California, USA, June 5 2017. REUTERS / Mike Blake / File Photo
“They have seen us and we have seen them,” Rear Admiral James Kirk said in a telephone interview from Nimitz, which has been conducting drills on the canal with the Seventh Fleet carrier, USS Ronald Reagan, which began in the United States. Independence Day party on July 4.
The U.S. Navy has assembled carriers for such displays of force in the region in the past, but this year’s exercise comes amid increased tension as the United States criticizes China for its new response to the coronavirus and accuses her of taking advantage of the pandemic to put territorial pressure on claims in the South China Sea and elsewhere.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the United States had deliberately sent its ships to the South China Sea to flex its muscles and accused it of trying to open a gap between countries in the region.
The Pentagon, when announcing the dual carrier exercise, said it wanted “to defend the right of all nations to fly, navigate and operate where international law allows it,” describing its 100,000-ton ships and the approximately 90 aircraft each. of them carry as a “symbol of resolution”.
About 12,000 sailors are on ships in the combined carrier strike groups.
China claims nine-tenths of the resource-rich South China Sea, through which about $ 3 trillion in trade passes annually. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam have competitive claims.
China has built island bases on atolls in the region, but says its intentions are peaceful.
Contacts with Chinese ships had been uneventful, Kirk said.
“We have the expectation that we will always have interactions that are professional and safe,” he said. “We are operating in some fairly congested waters, with a lot of maritime traffic of all kinds.”
Report by Tim Kelly; Editing by Robert Birsel
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