China says it 'drove away' U.S. destroyer near the disputed Scarborough Shoal

China said Wednesday it warned and "drove away" a U.S. destroyer that had sailed adjacent the seashore of the disputed Scarborough Shoal successful the South China Sea — 1 of the astir invaluable shipping lanes globally.

The U.S. destroyer, USS Higgins, "illegally entered China's territorial waters disconnected Huangyan Island without the support of the Chinese government," the country's defence ministry said, according to a CNBC translation of the connection successful Mandarin.

Huangyan Island is the sanction China uses to notation to the shoal, which has been the taxable of a maritime quality betwixt China and the Philippines.

China accused the U.S. subject of "seriously" infringing its sovereignty, adding that America's actions "severely undermine bid and stableness successful the South China Sea, and interruption planetary instrumentality and basal norms governing planetary relations."

The USS Higgins is simply a destroyer with the U.S. Seventh Fleet, based successful Yokosuka, Japan, which did not instantly respond to CNBC's petition for comment.

The incidental comes astatine a clip erstwhile Washington and Beijing are locked successful a commercialized spat that has seen the 2 contented incendiary statements, with China successful March informing that it was prepared for "a commercialized warfare oregon immoderate different benignant of war," with the U.S., earlier tensions subsided.

On Tuesday, a Chinese warship had crashed into one of its ain seashore defender vessels as it chased a patrol vessel belonging to the Philippines.

China claims astir each of the South China Sea arsenic its ain nether its "nine-dash-line," which rejects a 2016 ruling by an planetary arbitration tribunal successful the Netherlands, that recovered nary ineligible oregon humanities ground for Beijing's claims. 

There person been several clashes betwixt Chinese and Filipino ships successful the South China Sea, with the Philippines accusing Beijing's forces past twelvemonth of pursuing Philippine vessels and directing lasers astatine patrolling aircrafts adjacent different contested reef.

Clashes which person progressive vessel collisions, h2o cannons and injuries to Filipino sailors, according to Filipino officials.

In May 2024, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that should a Filipino national beryllium killed successful the South China Sea via an incidental with the Chinese Coast Guard, it would astir surely beryllium a "red line" and travel "very, precise adjacent to what we specify arsenic an enactment of war."

He added that "our pact partners I believe, besides clasp that aforesaid standard," referring to U.S. forces. Washington has a communal defence treaty with Manila since 1951, which states that an onslaught connected either the Philippines oregon the U.S. successful the Pacific is deemed to beryllium an onslaught connected the other.