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BEIJING: China hit back on Monday at US criticism that it restricts navigation and overflights in the South China Sea amid a festering marine territorial dispute with some of its neighbors.
China claims most of the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims.
Freedom of overflights and navigation doesn’t mean allowing foreign warships and military jets to violate other countries’ sovereignty and security, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement to Reuters on Monday, after US Secretary of State John Kerry accused China of restricting such movements in the region last week.
China sees freedom of navigation in the region as key because it is an important conduit for trade and natural resources, the ministry said.
Kerry told a meeting of regional leaders in Kuala Lumpur last week that China’s construction of facilities on man-made islands for “military purposes” was raising tension and risked “militarization” by other claimant states.