China lands 'test flight' on artificial island in disputed SCS

China has for the first time landed a plane on an artificial island it has built in a contested part of the strategic South China Sea, prompting Vietnam to accuse Beijing of "serious infringement" of its sovereignty.
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China conducted a "test flight" to check whether the airfield facilities met the standards for civil aviation.
Hua said the test flight was civilian in nature, adding that the "relevant activity falls completely within China's sovereignty".
"China has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and their adjacent waters. China will not accept the unfounded accusation from the Vietnamese side," she said, referring to the Spratly Islands by their Chinese name.

China said it has complete sovereignty over Fiery Cross Reef and had used a civilian plane to test the airstrip.
The South China Sea is rich in natural resources. It is also a major shipping lane. Over half of the world's commercial shipping passes through the Indo-Pacific waterways - including one-third of the world's liquefied natural gas.

China claims almost the whole of the South China Sea, resulting in overlapping claims with several other Asian nations like Vietnam and the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
They accuse China of illegally reclaiming land in contested areas to create artificial islands with facilities that could potentially be for military use.

The Vietnamese foreign ministry said the airfield was built illegally on a part of the Spratly archipelago that lies within its territory.
In Hanoi, the foreign ministry said it has handed a protest note to China's embassy and asked Beijing not to repeat the action.
It described the flight "a serious infringement of the sovereignty of Vietnam on the Spratly archipelago".
Meanwhile, the United States has said it was concerned that Saturday's flight had exacerbated tensions.
Pooja Jhunjhunwala, a spokeswoman for the US State Department, said there was "a pressing need for claimants to publicly commit to a reciprocal halt to further land reclamation, construction of new facilities, and militarisation of disputed features".

"We encourage all claimants to actively reduce tensions from unilateral actions that undermine regional stability, and taking steps to create space for meaningful diplomatic solutions to emerge," she was quoted as saying by the BBC.
Satellite images published by IHS Jane's Defence Weekly in April showed China building the airstrip on reclaimed land on Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands.
The landmass could accommodate a runway about 3,000m long, the report said.
It also showed dredging to the south of the reef, in apparent work to improve the reef's port facilities.
China says its work is legal and needed to safeguard its sovereignty.