China announced Monday that it will close off part of the South China Sea for military drills this week, just days after an international arbitration court ruled that Beijing’s disputed claims to the strategic waterway are invalid.
China’s Maritime Safety Administration said that an area southeast of the southern island province of Hainan would be closed from Monday to Thursday to allow for the military exercises. The military would not elaborate on any specifics regarding the drills.
The Chinese government has refused to comply with the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s July 12 ruling in The Hague, Netherlands, that nullified its territorial and maritime claims to virtually the entire South China Sea. Beijing refused to participate in the proceedings brought by the Philippines.
The government announced the drills during a three-day visit to China by U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, to discuss the territorial dispute and ways to improve interactions between both militaries.
Adm. Wu Shengli, head of the Chinese navy, said Monday that Beijing would continue to assert its territorial claims in the South China Sea, but that the military has been communicating with Richardson.
"I think that you can visit China this time at our invitation, that shows both sides attach great concern to maritime security," Wu told Richardson during brief remarks.
The meeting between Wu and Richardson came two days after Sun Jianguo, a senior admiral and deputy chief of the Joint Staff Department of the influential Central Military Commission, warned that freedom of navigation patrols conducted by the U.S. could end "in disaster."
"But China consistently opposes so-called military freedom of navigation which brings with it a military threat, and which challenges and disrespects the international law of the sea," Sun said at closed-door meeting on Saturday evening in Beijing, according to Reuters. "This kind of military freedom of navigation is damaging to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, and it could even play out in a disastrous way."
Several nations–including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam–claim territory in the South China Sea. Roughly $5 trillion in shipping trade passes through the waterway annually.