China says it drove away Dutch warship near disputed Paracel Islands

China’s military said on Wednesday that it had used measures including electronic interference to drive away a Dutch warship near the disputed Paracel Islands, and in a rare move accused the Dutch navy of triggering “miscalculation”.

The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Southern Theatre Command, which oversees the South China Sea, said in a post on its official WeChat account on Wednesday evening that the Dutch frigate De Ruyter had “illegally intruded into China’s Xisha Islands” and that its shipborne helicopter had “repeatedly taken off and entered Chinese airspace”.

The Paracel Islands, known as Xisha in China and Hoang Sa in Vietnam, lie just over 300km (190 miles) from Hainan, China’s tropical island province.

The Southern Theatre Command “organised naval and air forces” and “took necessary measures including verbal warnings and warning electronic interference” to expel the ship, the command’s spokesman Zhai Shichen said.

Zhai condemned the Dutch navy’s actions as “seriously infringing on China’s territorial sovereignty and the security of its sea and airspace, seriously violating international law and basic norms of international relations, and seriously undermining peace and stability in the South China Sea”.

In a rare wording, Zhai said the Dutch frigate was “extremely liable to trigger misunderstanding and miscalculation”.