U.S. officials said last week that the U.S. Navy avoided military
drills that could have further inflamed tensions with Beijing during
the Oct. 27 patrol by the destroyer USS Lassen in the Spratly
islands, an approach experts said could reinforce rather than
challenge China's sovereignty claims.
Senator John McCain, the Republican head of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, said in a Nov. 9 letter to U.S. Defense
Secretary Ash Carter it was vital there should be no
misunderstanding about U.S. objectives.
"I believe it is critical that the Department of Defense publicly
clarify ... the legal intent behind this operation and any future
operations of a similar nature," McCain wrote in the letter seen by
Reuters on Wednesday.
Washington argues that islands China has built up in the South China
Sea are not entitled to a territorial limit under international law
as they used to be under water at high tide.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Nov/12/images/ads/current/World_Finance_sda_christmas_102715.png) China reacted angrily to the patrol near Subi Reef, which followed
months of U.S. preparation, despite its lack of military drills.
But analysts said that if the Lassen failed to conduct military
drills, the operation would have resembled what is known as
"innocent passage," and could have reinforced China's claim to a
territorial limit around the reef.
McCain called on Carter to clarify what excessive claims the Lassen
was intending to challenge and whether the warship operated under
the rules of innocent passage.
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Innocent passage occurs when a ship quickly transits another
country's territorial waters, and can only take place in waters
belonging to another country.
Pentagon officials have given conflicting descriptions of the
Lassen's maneuver.
A U.S. official speaking to Reuters at the time described it as an
"innocent-passage" operation but later said that had been a mistake.
Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said on Nov. 4 the patrol was
not an "innocent passage," but when pressed further the following
day, he declined to explicitly restate that position or elaborate.
The Pentagon has yet to respond to McCain's letter, a spokesman
said.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; editing by Grant McCool)
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