FM: China able to safeguard rights

Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing "will not indulge actions of encroaching and infringing Chinese territory, rights and interests" when it comes to the Nansha Islands in the South China Sea.

"China's sovereignty over the Nansha Islands has not expanded and will never shrink. Otherwise, we would let our ancestors and predecessors down," Wang said on Saturday in response to a guest question at a luncheon of the fourth World Peace Forum in Beijing.

The islands have come under the spotlight recently after Washington criticized China's land reclamation and building of various facilities there.