China said on Tuesday it had expressed concern to the United States over what it considered an affront to its sovereignty after two US warships sailed through the Taiwan Strait.
The move adds to increasingly fraught relations between the two countries, which have clashed over a number of issues, including trade, Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and human-rights abuses in Xinjiang.
Monday was the second time in the space of three months that US warships had conducted so-called “freedom of navigation” exercises in the Taiwan Strait, a 180-kilometer-wide stretch of water separating the Chinese mainland and the self-ruled democratic island.
Beijing “expressed its concern to the US side” as “the Taiwan issue concerns China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular news briefing.
Hua said Beijing urged Washington to “scrupulously abide by the one-China principle” and “carefully handle the Taiwan-related issues in an appropriate manner.”
China still sees Taiwan as part of its territory to be reunified, despite the two sides being ruled separately since the end of a civil war on the mainland in 1949.
Colonel Rob Manning of the US Department of Defense told reporters that the USS Curtis Wilbur and USS Antietam conducted a routine transit to demonstrate US commitment “to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Multiple Chinese warships shadowed the two US vessels during the transit, following at a safe distance, American defense officials told CNN.
Beijing recently conducted a series of military maneuvers, including a live-fire exercise in the Taiwan Strait in April, declaring its willingness to confront Taiwan’s “independence forces.”
Washington remains Taipei’s most powerful unofficial ally and its main arms supplier despite switching diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979.
The administration of US President Donald Trump has sought closer ties to the island, announcing plans last month to sell it US$330 million worth of spare parts for several aircraft including the F-16 fighter and the C-130 cargo plane.
Taiwanese Premier William Lai said during a parliamentary session on Tuesday that Taiwan respected the US right of passage in international waters and recognized “the various efforts of the US in maintaining peace in the Asia-Pacific region.”
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry had said in an earlier statement that the military was “closely monitoring the US warships during their passage.”
Reporting by Agence France-Presse
The strait is 180 Kms wide and is considered international waters. So why shouldn’t US warships sail through it? Otherwise, China will a shot across the bow of any ship one of these days if US quietly accepts orders!
The strait is 180 Kms wide and is considered international waters. So why shouldn’t US warships sail through it? Otherwise, China will a shot across the bow of any ship one of these days if US quietly accepts orders!
Yes, the strait is wider, but to the Chinese it feels like the equivalent of a Chinese warship sailing between Long Island and Connecticut. "Ruled separately"? Neat choice of words. But both Fujian and Taiwan are considered part of China: either the People’s Republic or the Republic. And "freedom of navigation"? Let’s see: a foreign warship sails past several important ports in a country. Is this securing freedom of navigation or threatening it?
Regarding the South China Sea in particular, our reporting is from Cloud Cuckoo Land. The country that most needs freedom of navigation in the SCS is China, and its actions there serve to protect its supplies of oil from the Middle East, which are directly threatened by US contingency plans to blockade the Malacca Strait. The chain of potential Chinese bases across South Asia follows and protects the route that vital oil supplies take to get to China. Rather as US foreign bases have done the same for US supplies over the past 70 years.
Yes, the strait is wider, but to the Chinese it feels like the equivalent of a Chinese warship sailing between Long Island and Connecticut. "Ruled separately"? Neat choice of words. But both Fujian and Taiwan are considered part of China: either the People’s Republic or the Republic. And "freedom of navigation"? Let’s see: a foreign warship sails past several important ports in a country. Is this securing freedom of navigation or threatening it?
Regarding the South China Sea in particular, our reporting is from Cloud Cuckoo Land. The country that most needs freedom of navigation in the SCS is China, and its actions there serve to protect its supplies of oil from the Middle East, which are directly threatened by US contingency plans to blockade the Malacca Strait. The chain of potential Chinese bases across South Asia follows and protects the route that vital oil supplies take to get to China. Rather as US foreign bases have done the same for US supplies over the past 70 years.
The old divide and concquer still at play here….
The old divide and concquer still at play here….
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Beijing needs to learn the Kim Jong Un ropes… USS Pueblo and Otto Warmbier that is… Sadly Beijing is not and will never be capable of such feat and size balls regardless if its the CCP KMT DDP whatever…
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Beijing needs to learn the Kim Jong Un ropes… USS Pueblo and Otto Warmbier that is… Sadly Beijing is not and will never be capable of such feat and size balls regardless if its the CCP KMT DDP whatever…
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