U.S. destroyer sales through South China Sea waters China claims. The U.S. sought to assert the rights, freedoms and lawful uses of the sea recognized in international law, the Navy said in a statement. Unlawful and sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea pose an unprecedented threat to the freedom of the seas, including the freedoms of navigation and overflight and the right of innocent passage. The move came amid a rise in U.S.-China tensions over the novel coronavirus epidemic, in which Washington has accused Beijing of hiding and downplaying the initial outbreak after the virus emerged late last year in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The U.S. State Department had earlier said China was taking advantage of the region's focus on the coronavirus pandemic to coerce its neighbors. On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump also accused China of wanting him to lose in the November presidential elections. China claims the entire South China Sea, which is said to harbor valuable deposits of oil and gas, triggering a long-running dispute over maritime territory with countries across Southeast Asia. The Paracels are also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan, while other parts of the sea are claimed by the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. It was reported recently that a Malaysian oil exploration vessel was involved in a standoff with a Chinese research ship. In a statement on the People's Liberation Army website, the Chinese military said it had mobilized sea and air assets to track and warn the U.S. vessel away from Chinese territorial waters. The PLA accused the United States of provocative acts that seriously violated international law and China's sovereignty and security interests. The U.S. action was also incompatible with the current joint efforts of international community to fight against the COVID-19, it said. Last week, China sought to further advance its territorial claims when it announced that the Paracel and the nearby Spratly Islands, Mackelsfield Bank and their surrounding waters would be administered under China's control. Two new districts of Sancha City, which China created on nearby Woody Island in 2012. It also announced official Chinese names for 80 islands and other geographical features in the South China Sea, including reefs, sea mounts, shoals and ridges, 55 of them submerged in water. It also established a mental health facility, in mischief reef, which has been declared by the International Tribunal in the Hague as within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone. It states its claim to the sea on its controversial 9-line demarcation, a 2,000 km, 1,242 mile, U-shaped dashed line that first appeared in maps of revolutionary China in the 1940s. But the permanent court of arbitration in the Hague rejected as illegal 2016 China's claims to almost the entire sea, through which an estimated $3 trillion of trade passed each year. The U.S. Navy has been under the control of its own trade and its own security. The U.S. Navy has been under the control of its own trade and its own security. The U.S. Navy has been under the control of its own trade and its own security.