China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has greatly increased its presence in the Taiwan Strait, part of the greater South China Sea, in response to the growing number of freedom of navigation operations by the U.S. Navy, the South China Morning Post reported on Monday.

Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe told a security forum on Thursday that China will use military force to prevent Taiwan from asserting its independence.

Two American warships, the guided-missile destroyer USS Higgins and the missile cruiser USS Antietam, conducted a freedom of navigation patrol near Woody Island in the South China Sea on Sunday – the same island in the Paracels chain where China landed nuclear-capable long-range bombers for the first time last week.

The latest American freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea provoked an angry response from China, delivered through editorials in state-run media that blamed the United States for escalating tensions in the region.

The latest freedom of navigation patrol for the U.S. Navy in the South China Sea brought the destroyer USS John S. McCain to within 12 nautical miles of a Chinese artificial island off the Philippine coast on Thursday.

President Trump approved a Pentagon plan this year that will require regular challenges to China’s excessive maritime claims in the South China Sea, Breitbart News has learned.

WASHINGTON – The Navy has made several requests to conduct operations that would challenge China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, but the administration has not granted them, Breitbart News has learned.