Beijing lodges formal complaint over US spy plane flight in the South China Sea
State-run tabloid also says war inevitable with the United States unless it stops insisting that Beijing halts building islands in disputed waters
Beijing has lodged a complaint with Washington over a US spy plane that flew over parts of the disputed South China Sea last week.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular press briefing that China urged the US to correct mistakes and avoid “irresponsible words and deeds” about the issue of the South China Sea.
The US surveillance jet flew over areas where China is building artificial islands. Washington has called the flight entirely appropriate, but China has said it endangered the security of its islands and reefs.
A Chinese state-owned newspaper, the Global Times, said on Monday that “war is inevitable” between China and the United States over the South China Sea unless Washington stops demanding Beijing halt the building of artificial islands.
The newspaper, an influential nationalist tabloid owned by the ruling Communist Party’s official newspaper the People’s Daily, said in an editorial that China was determined to finish its construction work, calling it the country’s most important bottom line.
The editorial comes amid rising tensions over China’s land reclamation in the Spratly archipelago of the South China Sea.