WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States urged China to observe international maritime rules on Monday after five Chinese ships harassed an unarmed U.S. Navy ship in international waters in the South China Sea.

"Our ships operate fairly regularly in international waters where these incidents took place. We are going to continue to operate in those international waters and we expect the Chinese to observe international laws around them," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told a news conference.

[BLOGGER'S NOTE: I read Portuguese, so I can report that the Brazilian newspapers are reporting that the harassment of the unarmed ship took place over a number of days, becoming increasingly aggressive to the point that their boats were only a few yards away, creating such a dangerous situation that the U.S. sailors even tried using fire extinguishing equipment to try to get rid of them, and at one point the Chinese sailors removed their own clothes and stood their deck in their skivvies making fun of the Americans. And we thought global warming was a problem -- how about a couple billion Chinese in control of the oceans and the world's economy.]