A US Coast Guard ship passed through the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday, the US Navy’s 7th Fleet said on Thursday, crossing the sensitive waterway a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken completed a rare visit to Beijing.
strait, which separates china The democratically ruled island of Taiwan is a frequent source of tension as Beijing steps up its political and military pressure to try. Force Taipei to accept Chinese sovereignty.
US Navy’s 7th Fleet Says National Security Cutter USCGC Stratton Conducted “Routine” Operations Taiwan Strait Tuesday’s transit “through waters where freedom of navigation and overflight in the high seas is enforced in accordance with international law”.
In its statement, the 7th Fleet said, “Stratton’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. United States forces fly wherever international law permits.” , sails and operates.”
The mission, on which neither China nor Taiwan has yet commented, came a day after Blinken’s visit to Beijing ended with the two countries agreeing to stabilize their intense rivalry so it does not escalate into conflict , But failed to achieve any major success. ,
US military action in the water area
In recent years, US military ships and sometimes those of its allies have regularly passed through the strait, angering China, which views such operations as provocations.
This month the US Navy released a video of an “unsecured interaction” in the strait in which a Chinese warship passed in front of a US destroyer working alongside a Canadian warship.
Taiwan’s military reports Chinese incursions into the strait almost daily, mostly by warplanes that cross the waterway’s median line, which once served as an informal barrier between the two.
On Wednesday, Taiwan said Chinese warships led by the aircraft carrier Shandong passed through the strait.