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Beijing expresses anger after US warship transits Taiwan Strait
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) deployed surveillance ships and aircraft to tail a US warship which sailed through the narrow strait dividing the mainland and Taiwan on Tuesday morning.
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) deployed surveillance ships and aircraft to tail a US warship which sailed through the narrow strait dividing the mainland and Taiwan on Tuesday morning.
It was the first such passage through the Taiwan Strait after President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden held a video summit earlier this month, and where the Chinese President warned Biden that encouraging Taiwanese independence would be “playing with fire”.
The Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Milius’s passage through the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday was a routine transit, the US Seventh Fleet said in a statement.
“Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Milius conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit November 23 through international waters in accordance with international law,” Lieutenant Nicholas Lingo from the US Seventh Fleet said in the statement.
“The ship’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. The United States military flies, sails, and operates anywhere international law allows,” Lingo added.
US warships periodically conduct exercises in the strait, almost always triggering angry responses from Beijing, which claims Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy, and surrounding waters as its own territory.
The PLA’s eastern theatre command issued a statement saying it had deployed ships and aircraft to follow the US vessel.
“This move by the US creates security risks and undermines regional stability. The theatre troops will take all necessary measures to resolutely counter all threats and provocations, and resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” spokesperson Colonel Shi Yi said.
In Beijing, the Chinese foreign ministry echoed Yi’s views.
“US warships have repeatedly flaunted their strength and made provocations in the Taiwan Strait under the guise of freedom of navigation. This is not a promise of freedom and openness, but a deliberate interference and destruction of regional peace and stability,” ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at the ministry briefing.
“The US should immediately correct its mistakes, stop provoking troubles and playing with fire across the border, and play a constructive role for regional peace and stability,” he added.
China has mounted repeated air force missions into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ) over the past year or so, provoking anger in Taipei.
British, Canadian, French and Australian warships have all made passages through the Taiwan Strait in recent years, sparking protests from China.
“Nine were conducted in 2019 followed by 15 in 2020. So far this year there have been 11, including the USS Milius crossing,” news agency AFP reported, quoting Collin Koh, a research fellow at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, who keeps a database of declared US transits through the strait.
