WEST PHILIPPINE SEA — Two U.S. Navy warships sailed near the South China Sea islands on Sunday while carrying out "freedom of navigation operations," two American officials told Reuters.<br /><br />The USS Antietam, a guided missile cruiser, and the USS Higgins, a guided-missile destroyer came within 12 nautical miles of the Paracel Islands. <br /><br />The American vessels carried out maneuvering operations close too Tree, Lincoln, Triton and Woody islands in the Paracels, one of the officials told Reuters. <br />China said in a statement from the Ministry of National Defense on its website that it confronted the U.S. ships and warned them to leave. <br /><br />The chief spokesman for China's Ministry of National Defense, Senior Col. Wu Qian, said that the U.S. "gravely violated Chinese sovereignty," according to the New York Times. <br /><br />Tensions have been on the rise in the area after China for the first time landed one of its long-range H-6K strategic bombers on one of its man-made island in the Paracels, Woody Island.
