By Michael Martina, Greg Torode and Ben Blanchard

BEIJING/HONG KONG, May 10 (Reuters) – China scrambled fighter jets on Tuesday as a U.S. navy ship sailed near a disputed reef within the South China Sea, a patrol China denounced as an unlawful risk to peace which solely went to point out its protection installations within the space had been essential.

Guided missile destroyer the USS William P. Lawrence traveled inside 12 nautical miles (22 km) of Chinese-occupied Fiery Cross Reef, U.S. Defense Department spokesman Bill Urban mentioned.

The so-called freedom of navigation operation was undertaken to “challenge excessive maritime claims” by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam which had been looking for to limit navigation rights within the South China Sea, Urban mentioned.

“These excessive maritime claims are inconsistent with international law as reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention in that they purport to restrict the navigation rights that the United States and all states are entitled to exercise,” Urban mentioned in an emailed assertion.

China and the United States have traded accusations of militarizing the South China Sea as China undertakes large-scale land reclamation and building on disputed options whereas the United States has elevated its patrols and workout routines.

Facilities on Fiery Cross Reef embrace a 3,000-meter (10,000-foot) runway which the United States worries China will use to press its in depth territorial claims on the expense of weaker rivals.

China’s Defence Ministry mentioned two fighter jets had been scrambled and three warships shadowed the U.S. ship, telling it to go away.

The U.S. patrol “again proves that China’s construction of defensive facilities on the relevant reefs in the Nansha Islands is completely reasonable and totally necessary,” it mentioned, utilizing China’s title for the Spratly Islands the place a lot of its reclamation work is going down.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang mentioned the U.S. ship illegally entered Chinese waters.

“This action by the U.S. side threatened China’s sovereignty and security interests, endangered the staff and facilities on the reef, and damaged regional peace and stability,” he instructed a day by day information briefing.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry waved apart a query as as to whether the U.S. purpose was to ship a message forward of a go to to Asia by President Barack Obama this month.

“This is not a pointed strategy calculated to do anything except keep a regular process of freedom of navigation operations underway,” he instructed reporters in London.

SENSITIVE AREA

China claims a lot of the South China Sea, by which $5 trillion in ship-borne commerce passes yearly. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims.

The Pentagon final month referred to as on China to reaffirm it has no plans to deploy navy plane within the Spratly Islands after China used a navy aircraft to evacuate sick staff from Fiery Cross.

“Fiery Cross is sensitive because it is presumed to be the future hub of Chinese military operations in the South China Sea, given its already extensive infrastructure, including its large and deep port and 3,000-meter runway,” mentioned Ian Storey, a South China Sea knowledgeable at Singapore’s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute.

“The timing is interesting, too. It is a show of U.S. determination ahead of President Obama’s trip to Vietnam.”

Speaking in Vietnam, Daniel Russel, assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, mentioned freedom of navigation operations had been essential for smaller nations.

“If the world’s most powerful navy cannot sail where international law permits, then what happens to the ships of navy of smaller countries?” Russel instructed reporters earlier than information of the operation was made public.

China has reacted with anger to earlier U.S. freedom of navigation operations, together with the overflight of fighter planes close to the disputed Scarborough Shoal final month, and when long-range U.S. bombers flew close to Chinese amenities underneath building on Cuarteron Reef within the Spratlys final November.

U.S. naval officers consider China has plans to start out reclamation and building actions on Scarborough Shoal, which sits additional north of the Spratlys throughout the Philippines-claimed 200-nautical-mile (370-km) unique financial zone.

Tough-talking metropolis mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who appears set to grow to be president of the Philippines after an election on Monday, has proposed multilateral talks on the South China Sea.

A Chinese diplomat warned final week that criticism of China over the South China Sea would rebound like a coiled spring.

(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Paris and London, and My Pham in Hanoi; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel and James Dalgleish)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016.