News- World: China’s Ministry of Defense says expelled the USS Higgins, a US guided missile destroyer, after the ship “illegally entered China’s territorial waters off Huangyan Island” — the Chinese name for the disputed Scarborough Shoal — without government approval.

The USS Higgins, based in Yokosuka, Japan, was accompanied by the USS Cincinnati, a littoral combat ship, as they sailed approximately 30 nautical miles (55 kilometers) from the shoal. Chinese naval vessels reportedly shadowed the US warships during the operation.

Chinese defense authorities condemned the US military’s actions as a “significant infringement on China’s sovereignty” and said they “severely undermine peace and stability in the South China Sea.”

Beijing accused the United States of violating international law and fundamental principles governing international relations.

The Scarborough Shoal, along with several other features in the South China Sea, remains at the center of overlapping territorial claims by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan.

China’s claim to nearly the entire sea is based on the “nine-dash line,” a demarcation drawn in 1947. The claim was struck down by an international arbitration tribunal in The Hague in 2016, a ruling Beijing has refused to recognize.

The incident comes amid heightened tensions fueled by an ongoing trade dispute between the two powers and growing concerns over security in one of the world’s busiest maritime corridors.

Compounding regional friction, Manila reported that on Tuesday a Chinese warship collided with a Chinese Coast Guard vessel while pursuing a Philippine patrol boat near Scarborough Shoal.

The Philippines is the oldest treaty ally of the US in Asia, with a mutual defense treaty signed in 1951 asserting that an attack on either country in the Pacific is considered an attack on both.

In April, the United States and its allies launched the Balikatan military exercises in the western Pacific, deploying advanced interdiction systems in the Luzon Strait — a critical passage for Chinese naval forces entering the Pacific Ocean. The exercises underscored the growing strategic rivalry between Washington and Beijing.

Tensions have escalated sharply since March, when China declared its readiness to “fight any type of war” with the United States, responding to increased political and economic pressure from the Trump administration.

Source: Press TV