HONG KONG — Ahead of the first meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao, scheduled to take place in London next week, China has backed down, temporarily at least, in its dispute with the United States over whether U.S. Navy ships require Chinese permission before conducting activities in the South China Sea.

According to the U.S., an American surveillance vessel, the Impeccable, was surrounded and harassed by five Chinese ships on March 8 while it was operating in international waters. Beijing asserted that the American navy needed its permission to operate within China's exclusive economic zone.

Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, coastal states are entitled to a 200-mile (321 km) exclusive economic zone within which they enjoy "sovereignty rights for the purpose of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or nonliving, of the waters superjacent to the seabed and of the seabed and its subsoil."