The US has sent an aircraft carrier and a number of other ships through disputed waters in the South China Sea, it announced yesterday — a move that will necessarily raise tensions with Beijing, which has been engaging in an increasingly militaristic power-play in the area over the past few years.
The countries of The South China Sea have long claimed rights to disputed international waters, but as its economic strength has grown, an increasingly confident China has seen fit to flex its muscles by building military bases on artificial islands and militarizing one of the disputed Paracel Islands. It now claims almost all of the China Sea as its territory.
That has forced the US to send ships through the disputed waters to reaffirm their international status, most recently with a missile destroyer, the USS Curtis Wilbur, having sailed past the Paracels in January. But this latest move — a full aircraft carrier strike group led by the Nimitz-class USS John S Stennis — is the US’s boldest yet.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3478053/Tension-mounts-South-China-Sea-aircraft-carrier-strike-group-patrols-disputed-waters-testing-Beijing-s-nerve.html#ixzz42Ggbrc31