China's navy says it tracked the US warship USS Charleston near disputed Sabina Shoal

China's People's Liberation Army said on Tuesday 20 October that its Southern Theater Command Navy tracked and monitored the US littoral combat ship USS Charleston after the vessel, in Beijing's account, entered waters near Sabina Shoal in the Spratly Islands in the early hours of the day without permission from the Chinese government.

In a statement attributed to a navy spokesperson for the theater command, the PLA claimed that China holds indisputable sovereignty over the Spratly Islands, which it calls Nansha Qundao, and their adjacent waters. It said the US action infringed China's sovereign rights and interests, jeopardised maritime security and harmed regional peace and stability, demanded that Washington immediately stop such activities, and said the command's forces remain on high alert at all times. According to United Daily News, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV carried the statement at around midday Beijing time.

Reuters reported that the US Navy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Chinese statement did not say which ships or aircraft were sent to shadow the Charleston, how close the US ship came to the shoal or how long the encounter lasted, and Beijing's description of the US ship's route has not been independently confirmed. The account in this article of what the Charleston did rests on the PLA's claim.

Sabina Shoal, which Manila calls Escoda Shoal and Beijing calls Xianbin Jiao, is contested by China and the Philippines, which also both claim sovereignty over the wider Spratly archipelago. The Philippines has a mutual defence treaty with the United States, Reuters noted.

The shoal has been the scene of repeated confrontations. United Daily News recalled that on 12 October 2025 a China Coast Guard ship and a Philippine government vessel collided in the area, with each side blaming the other, and that on 12 December 2025 China's coast guard drove away Philippine fishing boats there, an operation Manila described as a water cannon attack and the US State Department condemned. On 18 September this year the Philippine Coast Guard accused a Chinese coast guard ship of ramming a Philippine government vessel on a resupply mission, while China's coast guard said it had been carrying out law enforcement near the shoal.

USNI News reported at the time that the September collision happened about 54 nautical miles off the Philippine island of Palawan, inside Manila's exclusive economic zone, when China Coast Guard cutter 21585 intercepted the fisheries vessel Magat Salamat, which was delivering fuel and food to Filipino fishing boats. China's coast guard said the Philippine side was responsible. USNI News also noted that Chinese channels had justified the 2024 blockade of the Philippine coast guard cutter Teresa Magbanua at Sabina Shoal by citing concern that Manila might ground a ship there, as it did with BRP Sierra Madre at Second Thomas Shoal.

Most of the recent incidents at the shoal described by United Daily News and USNI News involved coast guard and fisheries vessels from China and the Philippines. Tuesday's complaint came from the PLA Navy rather than China's coast guard and was directed at a United States warship, bringing Washington's own naval presence directly into the dispute over the feature. Neither Washington nor Manila had publicly responded to the Chinese account when the statement was reported.