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https://scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3037486/us-warship-sails-through-taiwan-strait-routine-operation Military
US warship sails through Taiwan Strait in ‘routine’ operation
- Operation weeks before Taiwan presidential election likely to be seen as provocative by Beijing
- Washington has upped the frequency of its transits, which Taipei welcomes as a sign of growing support
US Navy warship the USS Chancellorsville, a guided missile cruiser, sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday. Photo: Handout
A US Navy warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday in what it called a “routine” operation, continuing an exercise by Washington to exert influence in the region and in a tense period ahead of Taiwan’s critical presidential election.
The USS Chancellorsville, a guided-missile cruiser, conducted its transit through the strategic waterway in a demonstration of “the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific”, the US Navy said in a statement early on Wednesday.
“The US Navy will continue to operate anywhere international law allows,” it said.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said the US warship had sailed freely through the Taiwan Strait from the north before turning through the Bashi Channel near the southernmost tip of Taiwan.
The island’s military had “full grasp during the entire process of the neighbouring seas, the air and naval spaces, and other relevant developments, with no abnormalities during the period”, Taiwan’s statement said, adding that the public should not be worried.
This was at least the ninth passage by US naval vessels through the Taiwan Strait this year, most recently with the warship USS Antietam in late September.
The US has stepped up the frequency of its transits through the waterway despite Beijing’s objections, a major flashpoint between the powers amid strained ties over their ongoing trade war and clashes on multiple strategic fronts, including in the South China Sea.
Taipei welcomes the freedom-of-navigation passages as a sign of growing support for the island from Washington, as its own relations with Beijing have frozen under Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, of the independence-friendly Democratic Progressive Party. Tsai will seek re-election in the January 2020 election, challenged by Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu, from the mainland-friendly Kuomintang party.
Beijing claims self-governed and democratic Taiwan as its own, and has ramped up pressure against the island, which it vows it must bring under its fold by force if necessary.
Cross-strait relations have become a major issue in the election, particularly against a backdrop of five months of anti-government protests in Hong Kong, as both major Taiwanese parties assert their approach as the best one to deal with Beijing.
The Chinese foreign ministry has in the past denounced US naval trips in the Taiwan Strait, expressing “deep concerns to the US side” after a transit in late July by a warship and lodging “stern representations” after a passage in May by a US destroyer and oil tanker.
Beijing has repeatedly stressed that the Taiwan issue is the “most sensitive in China-US relations”, and has also slammed Washington’s arms sales to Taiwan, including the latest for 66 F-16V fighter jets.
While Washington does not have formal relations with Taipei, it has lent its support to the island with weapons sales, high-level exchanges, and by speaking out for Taiwan on the international stage.