US Navy sends warships through the Taiwan Strait; for Beijing a highly contentious issue

Tuesday, April 30th 2019 - 08:56 UTC

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The voyage risks further tensions with China but will likely be viewed by Taiwan as a sign of support from the Trump administration amid growing friction

The US military said it sent two Navy warships through the Taiwan Strait on Sunday as the Pentagon increases the frequency of movement through the strategic waterway despite opposition from China.

The voyage risks further raising tensions with China but will likely be viewed by Taiwan as a sign of support from the Trump administration amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing.

Taiwan is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the US-China relationship, which also include a trade war, US sanctions and China's increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea, where the United States also conducts freedom-of-navigation patrols.

The two destroyers were identified as the William P. Lawrence and Stethem. The 180km-wide Taiwan Strait separates Taiwan from China.

“The ships' transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Commander Clay Doss, a spokesman for the US Navy's Seventh Fleet, said in a statement.

Doss said there were no unsafe or unprofessional interactions with other countries' vessels during the transit.

Taiwan's Ministry of Defense said the US ships had sailed north through the strait.

“US ships freely passing through the Taiwan Strait is part of the mission of carrying out the Indo-Pacific strategy,” it said in a statement.

Taiwan's armed forces monitored the transit and nothing out of the ordinary happened, the ministry said.

In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China had paid close attention to the sailing and had expressed concern to the United States.

“The Taiwan issue is the most important and sensitive issue in Sino-US relations,” he told a daily news briefing.

The United States has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help defend the island and is its main source of arms. The Pentagon says Washington has sold Taipei more than US$15 billion in weaponry since 2010.

China has been ramping up pressure to assert its sovereignty over the island, which it considers a wayward province of “one China” and sacred Chinese territory.