A US surveillance ship violated Chinese and international laws while patrolling more than 100 miles away of the Chinese coast over the weekend, Chinese state-run media reported Tuesday.

"China has lodged serious representations with the United States, as the USNS Impeccable conducted activities in China's special economic zone in the South China Sea... We demand that the United States put an immediate stop to related activities and take effective measures to prevent similar acts from happening", Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ma Zhaoxu, said, cited by CNN .

"Five Chinese vessels shadowed and aggressively maneuvered in dangerously close proximity to USNS Impeccable, in an apparent coordinated effort to harass the U.S. ocean surveillance ship while it was conducting routine operations in international waters", the Pentagon said Monday in a statement.

"The U.S. claims are gravely in contravention of the facts and confuse black and white and they are totally unacceptable to China," Ma explained, although he had not said what China's version of the events were.

"Because the vessels' intentions were not known, Impeccable sprayed its fire hoses at one of the vessels in order to protect itself," the Pentagon's statement said. "The Chinese crew members disrobed to their underwear and continued closing to within 25 feet."

A Pentagon spokesman described the incident as "one of the most aggressive actions we've seen in some time".

He said the Chinese crew members used poles to try to snag the Impeccable's acoustic equipment in the water.

The Impeccable's crew members are primarily civilians, and the ship is not armed, the spokesman said. The 281.5-foot Impeccable is one of six surveillance ships that perform military survey operations, according to the Navy. It is an oceanographic ship that gathers underwater acoustic data, using sonar. It carries a crew of 20 mariners, five technicians and as many as 20 Navy personnel.

The Chinese ships involved included a navy intelligence collection ship, a Bureau of Maritime Fisheries patrol vessel, a State Oceanographic Administration patrol vessel and two small Chinese-flagged trawlers, the statement said.

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