Two United States guided-missile destroyers – the USS Spruance and the USS Preble — sailed into the South China Sea last Monday, close to the Spratly island group near Palawan. The sail-bys were, as expected, immediately protested by China as a “provocative action.” Earlier, last January 7, another US warship, the USS McCampbell, sailed near the Paracels, another group of islands also in the South China Sea but farther north, between Vietnam and Luzon.

Another US sail-by, another China protest. (2019, February 16). Manila Bulletin, p. 8