China, US navy leaders to meet amid tension

"China's South China Sea policies won't be changed because of the incident on Tuesday," Teng said.

Zhang Junshe, a senior researcher at the PLA Naval Military Studies Research Institute, said that "increased high-level contacts between the Chinese and US militaries is a good thing anyway".

"Especially, this could help the US side better perceive and understand China's actions in the South China Sea to champion legal rights and interests, have further recognition of China's island constructions and avoid misunderstanding or miscalculation," Zhang said.

At a regular news conference on Wednesday, Lu Kang, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the US behavior "violated international laws including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea as well as domestic laws of China".

Writing in the Huffington Post on Wednesday, Amitai Etzioni, professor of international relations at the George Washington University, described the US assertions of freedom of navigation as "dangerous."

Etzioni said China has in recent decades often settled territorial disputes using negotiations that have led to settlements that neutral parties consider to be fair. "Resorting instead to military means is likely to increase tensions between the United States and China and could lead to military clashes," he said.

Etzioni criticized the US for appointing itself as a global judge based on unilateral decision. He argued that the US allies in the Asian region are unlikely to be reassured by such maneuvers if the US continues to seem to allow itself to be pushed around in the Middle East by Russia, Iran and terrorist groups.

"If the United States seeks to shore up its credibility, it would be better to show that it is able to 'degrade and destroy ISIS,' as it committed itself to doing more than a year ago, rather than escalating and militarizing the conflict with China," he wrote.