US warship transits sensitive Taiwan Strait

A US warship sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Saturday as part of what the American military calls “routine” transit through international waters, a move criticised by the Chinese state media as “sending the wrong signal” amid the Ukraine crisis.

The US Navy’s 7th Fleet said the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson was conducting a “routine” transit through international waters.

“The ship’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” 7th Fleet spokesperson Nicholas Lingo said in a statement.

“The US military flies, sails, and operates anywhere international law allows,” the statement added.

A Reuters report from Taipei, quoting the defence ministry, said the ship sailed in a northerly direction through the Strait, that its forces had monitored its passage and observed nothing out of the ordinary.

While the Chinese defence ministry is yet to comment on the movement of the US warship, state-controlled media criticised it. “While the ongoing Ukraine-Russia tussle is intensifying, the US military is attempting to demonstrate its capabilities to stir up trouble on ‘two sides of the world’, meaning in Europe and Asia, and by doing so it sent a wrong signal to the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces,” analysts told the state-run Global Times.

In dealing with the Ukraine crisis, the US would rely on the 6th Fleet and the European Command, and at the same time, Washington relies on the 7th Fleet and the Indo-Pacific Command to shadow China, Song Zhongping, a Chinese mainland military expert, told Global Times.

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.

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.

The Reuters report said Taiwan is currently in a heightened state of alert due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, nervous that China may try to take advantage of the situation to make a move on the island though the government has reported no unusual Chinese manoeuvres.