BEIJING, Jan 25 — The United States (US) Navy sailed its first warship through the sensitive Taiwan Strait yesterday following presidential and Parliamentary elections on the island, drawing Beijing’s ire.
It said the destroyer USS John Finn transited through a corridor in the Taiwan Strait which was “beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state”.
“John Finn’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States’ commitment to upholding freedom of navigation for all nations as a principle.
“No member of the international community should be intimidated or coerced into giving up their rights and freedoms,” the US Navy said in a statement.
China’s military said the mission was “public hyping” and that its forces monitored and warned the ship.
“Recently, the US military has frequently carried out provocative acts to maliciously undermine regional peace and stability,” the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theatre Command said in a statement.
Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said the ship sailed in a southerly direction through the strait, adding it monitored the movement and the situation was “normal”.
The US Navy’s last announced passage of a warship through the strait was in early November last year, joined at the time by a Canadian frigate.
The latest transit came as leaders of the US House of Representatives Taiwan Caucus, Republican Representative Mario Diaz Balart and Democratic Representative Ami Bera, visit Taipei, as a show of support after its January 13 election.
In the past four years, China, which also views Taiwan as its own territory, has regularly sent warplanes and warships into the skies and waters around the island as it seeks to assert sovereignty claims which the Taipei government rejects.
Last week, Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said it detected 18 Chinese air force planes operating around Taiwan and carrying out “joint combat readiness patrols” with Chinese warships, the first large-scale military activity after the Taiwanese election.
— Reuters
