Translate This News In |
---|
On Tuesday, a US destroyer and a Canadian frigate sailed through the Taiwan Strait in the latest joint operation to bolster the route’s status as an international waterway.
Beijing considers democratic Taiwan and the narrow body of water separating the island from mainland China – one of the world’s busiest shipping channels – to be its own.
The US has long used “freedom of navigation” passages through the Taiwan Strait to counter Chinese claims, and Western allies have increasingly joined in on the action.
According to the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet, the USS Higgins, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, and the Royal Canadian Navy’s Halifax-class frigate HMCS Vancouver “conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit September 20 (local time)… in accordance with international law.”
The ship passed through a corridor in the Strait that is beyond any coastal State’s territorial sea.”
The HMCS Vancouver was en route to join an ongoing mission to enforce UN sanctions against North Korea when it transited with the USS Higgins, according to Canada.
The latest transit, according to a spokesman for China’s Eastern Theatre Command, is “public hype.”
“The troops are always on high alert, resolutely counteracting all threats and provocations, and resolutely defending national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Colonel Shi Yi told CCTV.
In recent years, British, Canadian, French, and Australian warships have transited the Taiwan Strait, prompting Beijing to protest.
They also frequently ply the South China Sea, another vital shipping area that Beijing insists belongs to it, despite a 2016 Hague ruling that rejected its claims as well as rival claims from multiple neighbours.
The destroyer USS Dewey and frigate HMCS Winnipeg sailed through the Taiwan Strait 11 months ago.
The latest joint declaration came a day after President Joe Biden declared that US troops would come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese invasion.
This was the fourth time Biden made such remarks, despite Washington’s longstanding official policy of “strategic ambiguity” aimed at both deterring a Chinese invasion and discouraging Taiwan from provoking Beijing by formally declaring independence.
Each time after Biden’s remarks, the White House stated that US policy on Taiwan had not changed.