American naval exercises in the Spratly.Islands

So, there is a US flotilla under a US admiral sailing around the Spratly Islands that China has claimed as belonging to it

Historically such claims are facts of history. Japan claimed a whole slew of island thousands of miles from its home islands. They included islands opposite the  coastline of China. It even once included Taiwan. Japan's island claims went north from the Northern tip of Hokkaido to the southern tip of Russian Kamchatka Peninsula. The  US claimed the Hawaiian islands in the Pacific and those in the Caribbean including Puerto Rico; and the French claimed various islands in the Pacific, Italy claimed an island off the coast of Libya and Spain claimed the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off West Africa and islands in the Mediterranean Sea off North West Africa. We really do not need list the grasp of British island claims do we?

However, in this instance the US wishes to note to China that it cannot do this in 2014/2015.

So:

http://en.people.cn/n/2015/1030/c98649-8969306.html

The exchanges between the US and the Chinese admirals are so polite. 

However in the case of the Chinese admiral he is voicing his deep regrets and sadness if, in the future, by accident a Chinese frigate were to accidentally torpedo and sink a US destroyer such as the Lassen, during their naval exercises; or if a Chinese missile accidentally shot down a US interceptor jet.

Everyone knows that the chances of such possibilities are very high when a US naval task force is over 30,000 miles from its home naval base in San Diego. What on earth is it doing sailing around Chinese territory?