WASHINGTON: Two US Navy warships sailed through international waters in the Taiwan Strait on Sunday, the American navy said, the first such transit since China staged unprecedented military drills around the island earlier this month.

In a statement, the US Navy said the transit “demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

The US Navy, confirming a Reuters report, said cruisers Chancellorsville and Antietam were carrying out the ongoing operation. Such operations usually take eight to 12 hours to complete and are closely monitored by China’s military.

“These [US] ships transited through a corridor in the strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state,” the US Navy said.

The Chinese military’s Eastern Theatre Command said it was following the ships and warning them.

“Troops in the theatre remain on high alert and are ready to thwart any provocation at any time,” it added in a statement.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said the ships were sailing in a southerly direction and that its forces were observing but that “the situation was as normal”.

In recent years US warships, and on occasion those from allied nations such as Britain and Canada, have routinely sailed through the strait, drawing the ire of China which claims Taiwan against the objections of its democratically elected government.

Washington diplomatically recognises Beijing over Taipei, but maintains de facto relations with Taiwan and supports the island’s right to decide its future. The narrow Taiwan Strait has been a frequent source of military tension since the defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the communists, who established the People’s Republic of China.

Tensions in the Taiwan Strait soared to their highest level in years this month after US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei — a trip that infuriated China which saw it as a US attempt to interfere in its internal affairs.

Beijing reacted furiously, staging days of air and sea exercises around the self-ruled island.

Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan was followed around a week later by a group of five other US lawmakers, with China’s military responding by carrying out more exercises near the island.

Senator Marsha Blackburn, a US lawmaker on the Senate Commerce and Armed Services committees, arrived in Taiwan on Thursday on the third visit by a U.S. dignitary this month, defying pressure from China to halt the trips.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has sought to keep tension between Washington and Beijing from boiling over into conflict, reiterating that congressional trips are routine.

The United States has no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan but is bound by law to provide the island with the means to defend itself.Taiwan sees China’s growing military drill near island

Taiwan says the People’s Republic of China has never ruled the island and so has no claim to it, and that only Taiwan’s 23 million people can decide their future. Taiwan’s defence ministry said it detected 23 Chinese aircraft and eight Chinese ships operating around Taiwan on Sunday, as Beijing continues its military activities near the island.

That included seven Chinese aircraft that crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which normally acts as an unofficial barrier between the two sides, it added.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2022