TAIPEI: The United States warship USS Milius on Sunday sailed through the Taiwan Strait in what its navy described on Monday as the “routine” transit, just days after China ended war drills around the island.
China, which views Taiwan as its territory, officially ended its three days of military exercises around Taiwan last Monday, where it carried out precision strikes and blockading the island.
China staged drills to express anger at the President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting with United States House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy, viewing it as interference in China’s internal affairs and United States support for Taiwan’s separate identity from China.
The United States Navy’s 7th Fleet said that the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Milius conducted the “routine Taiwan Strait transit” through waters “where high-seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply following international law”.
It added that the ship’s transit demonstrates the United States’ commitment to the free and open Indo-Pacific.
The United States Navy sails warships through the strait around once a month and regularly conducts similar freedom of navigation missions in a disputed South China Sea.
Last the previous, the USS Milius sailed near one of the significant artificial and Chinese-controlled islands in the South China Sea, Mischief Reef. Beijing denounced it as illegal. China has continued its army activities around Taiwan since the exercise ended, though on a reduced scale.
On Monday morning, the Ministry of Defence Taiwan’ssaid that it had spotted 18 Chinese army aircraft and four naval vessels operating around Taiwan in the previous 24-hour period.
China has never renounced using force to bring democratically governed Taiwan under its control.
Taiwan’s government refused China’s territorial claims and said only the island’s citizens could decide their future.
