WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – Two United States warships sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Sunday, the American navy said, the first such transit since China staged unprecedented military drills around the island.
Tensions in the Taiwan Strait soared to their highest level in years this month after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei.
Beijing reacted furiously, staging days of air and sea exercises around Taiwan.
Washington diplomatically recognizes Beijing over Taipei, but maintains de facto relations with Taiwan and supports the island’s right to decide its own future.
The guided-missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville on Sunday made the voyage “through waters where high seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law,” the U.S. 7th Fleet in Japan said in a statement.
China has long considered the island as part of its sovereign territory and has publicly stated that it may take it by force one day, if needed.
Under the “one China” policy, nearly all countries across the globe, the U.S. included, recognize Beijing’s sovereignty over Chinese Taipei. However, Washington continues to court the secessionist government in Taipei, support its anti-China stance, and supply it with massive amounts of armaments.
The U.S. Navy regularly sends its warships through the strait in what it calls freedom of navigation operations, including recent voyages by the guided missile destroyers USS Benfold and USS Port Royal.
“The frequent provocations and showing-off by the U.S. fully demonstrate that the U.S. is the destroyer of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the creator of security risks in the Taiwan Strait,” Col. Shi Yi, spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command, said after the Benfold’s transit on July 19.
The latest transit by the U.S. Navy comes following Pelosi’s widely criticized visit to the island on 2 August.
In response to the visit, China launched a series of drills across six zones surrounding, with Beijing saying the drills were countermeasures in the face of provocations by the United States and its allies in Taipei.
Also on Thursday, U.S. Senator and Armed Services committees, Marsha Blackburn, became the latest member of Congress to visit the island.
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has kept on fanning the flaming tensions between Beijing and Washington by the visits, and has continuously defended the visits by saying that such congressional trips are routine.