China warns off US warship trespassing in S China Sea

The Chinese military dispatched its ships and aircraft on Tuesday to warn off a warship from the United States that trespassed into China's territorial waters near the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea, a military spokesman said on Wednesday.

Senior Colonel Li Huamin, spokesman for the People's Liberation Army's Southern Theater Command, was quoted by a statement as saying that the USS McCampbell, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer in the US Navy, sailed into the territorial waters without permission from China.

The Southern Theater Command mobilized its naval and air units to follow, monitor and identify the US vessel before warning it off, he said.

The US used so-called freedom of navigation to repeatedly engage in muscle-flexing and provocations in the South China Sea, Li said, noting that such acts showed US hegemonism, its violations of the international law as well as the true threats to peace and stability in the area.

China has undisputable sovereignty over the islands and its surrounding waters in the South China Sea, and the Chinese armed forces are always ready to take any necessary measures to defend the nation's sovereignty and security and the region's peace and stability.