BEIJING -- The U.S. Navy on Tuesday dismissed Beijing’s protests over a "freedom of navigation operation” conducted near a Chinese-held island in the South China Sea, in the latest incident drawing new attention to one of the world's potential military flashpoints.

The Navy said its guided missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville on Tuesday “asserted navigational rights and freedoms in the South China Sea near the Spratly Islands, consistent with international law.”

China called the action illegal and said it mobilized naval and air assets to issue warnings and drive off the ship, a characterization the Navy and Pentagon disputed.

“I know that there has been some reporting that China essentially ejected our ship from the area, that is not true,” said Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder.

China said the U.S. Navy's sail “seriously violated” its sovereignty and security, and called it "further ironclad evidence of its pursuit of navigational hegemony and militarization of the South China Sea,” the spokesperson for the Southern Theater Command, Air Force Col. Tian Junli, was quoted as saying.

“China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and their adjacent waters,” Tian said.

The Navy's 7th Fleet, which is responsible for U.S. naval operations in the region, issued a rebuttal, calling it “the latest in a long string of (Chinese) actions to misrepresent lawful U.S. maritime operations and assert its excessive and illegitimate maritime claims” in the South China Sea. China claims the area virtually in its entirety.