Two U.S. destroyers steamed near islands in the increasingly contested South China Sea Monday as part of a continuing effort to counter Beijing\u2019s claim over those waters, officials confirmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The guided-missile destroyers Spruance<\/a> and Preble<\/a> sailed within 12 nautical miles of the Spratly Islands<\/a> \u201cin order to challenge excessive maritime claims and preserve access to the waterways as governed by international law,\u201d Cmdr. Clayton Doss, spokesman for the Japan-based U.S. 7th Fleet<\/a>, said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These freedom of navigation operations, or FONOPs<\/a>, are designed to challenge China\u2019s increasingly strident assertions that shoals and islets in international waters are their territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China has built and fortified islands in the Spratly group, including added runways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Monday\u2019s FONOP focused on Mischief Reef<\/a>, an atoll east of the Spratly group that China has expanded into an island and equipped with runways, hangars and other military facilities, according to satellite images<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam also claim the reef.<\/p>\n\n\n\t