The United States sailed a Navy destroyer through the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday in what it called a "routine" transit of an international waterway.
The maneuver was announced by the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet, headquartered in Japan, and elicited a response from Beijing, which in recent years has challenged the American military's right to operate near China's shores, as it has done for decades.
Accompanying images published by the Seventh Fleet showed the USS John Finn, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, traversing one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, through which goods flow not only to and from China and Taiwan but also further north to Japan and South Korea, two U.S. treaty allies.
"U.S. ships transit between the South China Sea and the East China Sea via the Taiwan Strait and have done so for many years. The transit occurred through a corridor in the Taiwan Strait that is beyond any coastal state's territorial seas," the Navy said.
"Within this corridor all nations enjoy high-seas freedoms of navigation, overflight, and other internationally lawful uses of the sea related to these freedoms," its statement read.
Taiwan's Defense Ministry confirmed that an American warship transited the strait from south to north, a detail also included for the first time by the Seventh Fleet itself.
The Chinese People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theater Command, based in the country's coastal city of Nanjing, said its forces monitored the John Finn throughout its transit, which it accused the Navy of "hyping up."
"[Eastern] theater troops are on high alert at all times, ready to respond to all threats and provocations," said its spokesperson, Colonel Shi Yi.
China's warplanes and warships operate daily in the strait and around Taiwan in moves Taipei says are a form of military intimidation, meant to assert Beijing's territorial claim to the democratically governed island.
Taipei said a dozen PLA aircraft, six Chinese Navy vessels and at least one Chinese high-altitude balloon were detected in its surrounding sea and airspace in the 24 hours to 6 a.m. local time on Tuesday.
The U.S. has no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan but is its strongest international backer as well as its main arms supplier. Washington is bound by U.S. law to provide weapons for Taipei's self-defense, and would be expected to intervene in some form in a possible cross-strait conflict.
The U.S. military transited the Taiwan Strait 11 times last year and 10 times in 2022, near-monthly shows of resolve that involve Navy warships and aircraft.
The only other Taiwan Strait transit of the year so far was also undertaken by the John Finn, in late January, when it passed through the waters from north to south.
China at the time decried what it said were the U.S.'s frequent "provocative acts."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
John Feng is Newsweek's contributing editor for Asia based in Taichung, Taiwan. His focus is on East Asian politics. He ... Read more
