By Chris Buckley
BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Tuesday accused the United States of distorting the truth and breaking the law after a U.S. Navy survey ship jostled with Chinese vessels off an island that is a launch-point of Beijing's naval expansion.
China's anger was directed at the Pentagon which said five Chinese ships, including a naval vessel, harassed the USNS Impeccable in international waters off Hainan, a province-island in the South China Sea, on Sunday.
Washington also urged China to respect international maritime rules.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu dismissed the Pentagon claims, saying the U.S. ship was in the wrong.
But his tight-lipped answers gave no suggestion Beijing anticipates the flare-up will spill into broader political and economic ties as the two sides ready for a G20 summit in London next month.
"The U.S. claims are gravely in contravention of the facts and confuse black and white and they are totally unacceptable to China," Ma told a regular news briefing.
He said the U.S. ship violated an international sea convention as well as China's laws on its exclusive economic zones and on scientific research in its seas.
The dispute was unlikely to do lasting damage to ties between the two countries as they combat the global economic slump, a Chinese analyst in Beijing said.
"Overall, this won't have a major impact, because financially the United States needs China too much, and China also needs the United States," said Shi Yinhong of Renmin University in Beijing.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi left for Washington on Monday to work on plans for a meeting between President Hu Jintao and President Barack Obama in London next month. Spokesman Ma gave no suggestion Yang's itinerary or agenda had changed because of the sea dispute.
Global oil prices rose 3 percent on Monday and held above $47 a barrel on Tuesday, partly on jitters about tension between the world's top oil consumers.
Denny Roy, a U.S.-based expert on Asia-Pacific security, said the confrontation did not appear accidental, and was rather China's way of sending a message to Washington that it wanted respect for its growing military reach in the region.
"I don't think this happened spontaneously," said Roy, of the East-West Centre in Honolulu, Hawaii. "No doubt it had the endorsement of central leaders in Beijing."
The latest row suggests Beijing will take a tougher stance as its naval ambitions grow, said Shi, the Beijing professor.
"The United States is present everywhere on the world's seas, but these kinds of incidents may grow as China's naval activities expand," he said.
SPARRING AT SEA
The Chinese vessels "shadowed and aggressively manoeuvred in dangerously close proximity" to the Impeccable, an unarmed ocean surveillance vessel, with one ship coming within 25 feet (7.6 metres), a U.S. Defence Department statement said.
Tropical Hainan, less than 100 km (60 miles) south of the mainland, hosts a Chinese naval base that houses ballistic missile submarines, according to independent analysts.
Analyst Shi said the seas there were important to China's projection of its influence with a modern naval fleet.
"The change is in China's attitude. This reflects the hardening line in Chinese foreign policy and the importance we attach to the strategic value of the South China Sea."
An unnamed spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington earlier denied the Chinese ships had violated maritime rules and said U.S. ships had conducted illegal surveying, the website of Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television (news.ifeng.com) reported.
It said the incident happened 120 km (70 miles) south of the island.
The U.S. ship had "violated the relevant international laws and Chinese laws and regulations," spokesman Ma said, urging the United States to halt such action.
U.S. defence officials said the incident followed days of increasingly aggressive Chinese conduct in the area, including fly-bys by Chinese maritime surveillance planes.
The flare-up just weeks after the two sides resumed military talks, postponed in November after a U.S. announcement of arms sales to Taiwan, a self-ruled island China claims as its own.
It also echoes a stand-off in 2001 between U.S. and Chinese military forces after a U.S. spy plane made an emergency landing on Hainan following a collision with a Chinese fighter jet. China released 24 crew after a U.S. expression of regret.
Spokesman Ma did not mention any demand for an apology this time -- perhaps another hint this dispute will not seriously escalate.
China's national parliament, now in annual session, is set to approve a military budget increase of 14.9 percent more than spending in 2008, bringing announced People's Liberation Army funds to 480.7 billion yuan (50 billion pounds). Many foreign experts believe its real budget is much higher.
Some of that extra money may go to developing China's first aircraft carrier -- the trophy ship of an ambitious sea power -- senior naval officers have recently suggested.
"Go and ask the Americans, ask their embassy," Vice Admiral Jin Mao, former Navy vice commander in chief, told Reuters on the sidelines of parliament when asked about the incident. "Ask their officials what their ship was doing in Chinese waters."
(Additional reporting by Ian Ransom in Beijing and David Morgan in Washington; Editing by Nick Macfie and Jerry Norton)
