Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative/CSISVietnam formally accused China of violating its sovereignty and a recent confidence-building pact on Saturday by landing a plane on an airstrip Beijing has built on an artificial island in a contested part of the South China Sea.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said the airfield, had been “built illegally” on Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly archipelago.
Meanwhile, China’s Foreign Ministry rejected the complaint, saying that the test flight on the newly built airfield on the reef was a matter “completely within China’s sovereignty,” the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
Currently five claimants have built airstrips in …read more
Source: Business Insider
