Meanwhile, the United States has said it was concerned that Saturday’s flight had exacerbated tensions. Mr Hua said the test flight was civilian in nature, adding that the “relevant activity falls completely within China’s sovereignty”.China has for the first time landed a plane on an artificial island it has built in a contested part of the strategic South China Sea, prompting Vietnam to accuse Beijing of “serious infringement” of its sovereignty. China will not accept the unfounded accusation from the Vietnamese side,” she said, referring to the Spratly Islands by their Chinese name.Beijing has also rejected a protest from Vietnam after a Chinese plane landed on a contested reef in the South China Sea, saying the operation took place within Chinese territory. Satellite images published by IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly in April showed China building the airstrip on reclaimed land on Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands. It also showed dredging to the south of the reef, in apparent work to improve the reef’s port facilities.
China says its work is legal and needed to safeguard its sovereignty. China said it has complete sovereignty over Fiery Cross Reef and had used a civilian plane to test the airstrip. Pooja Jhunjhunwala, a spokeswoman for the US state department, said there was “a pressing need for claimants to publicly commit to a reciprocal halt to further land reclamation, construction of new facilities, and militarisation of disputed features”.It described the flight “a serious infringement of the sovereignty of Vietnam on the Spratly archipelago”.Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China conducted a “test flight” to check whether the airfield facilities met the standards for civil aviation.The Vietnamese foreign ministry said the airfield was built illegally on a part of the Spratly archipelago that lies within its territory. In Hanoi, the foreign ministry said it has handed a protest note to China’s embassy and asked Beijing not to repeat the action.”China has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and their adjacent waters. Hanoi earlier strongly protested at the flight, labelling it a violation of sovereignty which “influences peace and stability in the South China Sea”. Vietnamese officials also said they had asked Beijing to investigate the ramming and sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat by a suspected Chinese boat.”Vietnam resolutely protests China’s above-mentioned action, asking China to immediately end while not repeating similar move,” said foreign ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh in Hanoi.”We encourage all clai-mants to actively reduce tensions from unilateral actions that undermine regional stability, and taking steps to create space for meaningful diplomatic solutions to emerge,” she was quoted as saying by the BBC..The landmass could accommodate a runway about Rubber speed hump Manufacturers 3,000m long, the report said
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