Two US Air Force bombers have flown near disputed islands in the South China Sea ahead of a major regional security summit in Singapore, where the US and Chinese defense ministers are set to meet.
Two US B-52 Stratofortress bombers took off from the Anderson Air Force Base in Guam as part of a “routine training mission in the vicinity of the South China Sea” on Tuesday, the Pacific Air Forces said in a Thursday statement.
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The Tuesday flight was said to be part of US Indo-Pacific Command's “Continuous Bomber Presence operations” since March 2004, and was “consistent with international law and [a] long-standing commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
The Pentagon, however, refused to confirm which islands the bombers flew by, but it may have been the Spratly Islands, claimed by China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Addressing the tensions in the South China Sea at a regular press briefing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang stated that Beijing had “indisputable sovereignty over the islands… and their adjacent waters.”
“China's peacebuilding activities in its own territory, including the deployment of necessary defense facilities, are to exercise the right of self-preservation and self-defense as a sovereign state in accordance with international law. These activities have nothing to do with…
