The United States' freedom of navigation operations pose a risk to the maritime claims of 19 nations in different regions of the world including China, Taiwan, the Philippine and South Korea according to China's state-run nationalist tabloid Global Times.
"It was the largest number of countries challenged in more than a decade, establishing the program's return to levels from before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when US forces had to curtail operations because of other priorities," said a US official cited by Reuters after the annual report of the freedom of navigation was released on Mar. 25. He said that the US decided to expand its level of the operations due to an increased focus on Latin America.
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