China said it warned and tracked a U.S. Navy warship as it came very close to one of China's artificial islands in contested waters in the South China Sea on Tuesday, slamming the patrol as "illegal." China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the vessel "illegally entered into the waters of China's Spratly Islands." China's foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang blasted the exercise, saying that the ship "illegally entered" the waters near the islands "without receiving permission from the Chinese government".

Beijing "resolutely opposes any country using freedom of navigation and overflight as a pretext for harming China's national sovereignty and security interests", he said, adding it would "staunchly defend its territorial sovereignty". "The action taken by the U.S. warship has threatened China's sovereignty and security interest, and has put the safety of personnel on the reefs in danger," the statement said.

A U.S. defense official told CNN that the destroyer USS Lassen "conducted a transit" within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef in the Spratly Islands on Tuesday morning local time. The operation put the ship within an area that would be considered Chinese sovereign territory if the U.S. recognized the man-made islands as being Chinese territory, the official added.

The United States hadn't breached the 12-mile limit since China began massive dredging operations to turn three reefs into artificial islands in 2014 -- even though maritime law doesn't usually accord territorial waters to islands built on previously submerged reefs. The South China Sea is the subject of numerous rival and often messy territorial claims, with China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam disputing sovereignty of several island chains and nearby waters.

Source: QNA