FPSA warship challenges China claims in South China Sea!

SOUTH CHINA SEA (PNN) - October 21, 2016 - The USS Decatur, a guided-missile destroyer, has sailed around the vicinity of a number of Chinese claimed islands in the Paracel Islands chain in the South China Sea, in a move Fascist Police States of Amerika officials say was done primarily to prove to China that they could do so over Chinese objections. This is just the latest in a series of Pentagon “patrols” through the area, which officially are presented as freedom of navigation operations, but which in the past The Pentagon has repeatedly hyped as being overt challenges to Chinese maritime claims.

This one didn’t require The Pentagon hype, as the Decatur spent so much time loitering around the Paracels that China’s Defense Ministry issued its own statement condemning it as an “illegal” and “provocative” act. China said two of its warships had warned the Decatur to leave. The ships were the frigate Luoyang and the Guangzhou, a missile destroyer.

The claims of the patrol being illegal are disputed. Recent cases in international law, which jurisdiction China does not recognize, have suggested that unoccupied islands like the ones in question don’t extend a nation’s maritime sovereignty, and that subsequently the ship never technically entered Chinese waters. The FPSA is keen to make this claim, though at the same time it went in knowing China’s position, and therefore the claim it was provocative is definitely a fair one.