The U.S. Navy sent a Japan-based warship within 12 nautical miles (22 km) of an island in the South China Sea Saturday that is claimed by Beijing and others in an effort to challenge what the Pentagon called "excessive maritime claims."

The USS Curtis Wilbur, a guided-missile destroyer home-ported in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, conducted the so-called freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) near Triton Island, part of the Paracel island chain in the disputed South China Sea.

China, Vietnam and Taiwan all have rival claims to the island on which Beijing has a manned outpost. None of them were given prior notification.