The U.S. deployed a P-8 Poseidon spy plane to Singapore for the first time ever, a decision that was met Tuesday with suspicion by Chinese government officials.
"I think this kind of increase in military deployment by the United States and pushing regional militarization does not accord with the joint long-term interests of the countries in this region," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing.
China claims sovereignty over almost all of the resource rich waters and this has sparked confrontations with the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan, who also have overlapping claims.
Singapore & US signed an enhanced agreement and pledged to expand defence relationship. Read https://t.co/Ib03zGZaNh pic.twitter.com/79lfTdHWj0
— cyberpioneer (@cybpioneer) December 8, 2015
In November, an arbitral tribunal in The Hague heard some of the Philippines’ territorial claims over the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The move to bring the issue to court was prompted by China’s program of building airstrips and defenses on some of the islands which U.S. President Barack Obama has publicly chided.
Last month, U.S. B-52 bombers flew near some of China's artificial islands and at the end of October a U.S. guided-missile destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of one of them despite continuous warnings to the crew from Chinese military to leave the area.
US spy planes to fly from #Singapore over #SouthChinaSea https://t.co/4e7ABZeabc pic.twitter.com/SMzRDXRw69
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) December 7, 2015
However, U.S. Lt. Cdr. and Navy spokesperson, Arlo Abrahamson was quick to quash claims that the move to deploy a spy plane to the region was centered solely on China’s territorial claims.
"It's not about the South China Sea, it's about partnership with Singapore and other partners in the region," he said speaking from Singapore.
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Abrahamson also cited previous operations between Singapore and the U.S. during his briefing such as the cooperation between the two nations in the search for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 and the Air Asia plane that crashed on Dec. 28, 2014.
The statement also announced that the U.S. will also operate a military plane, either a P-8 Poseidon or a P-3 Orion, from Singapore's Paya Lebar air base for the foreseeable future, rotating planes on a quarterly basis.
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