(Washington) An American military ship sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Thursday, the US Navy announced, an operation likely to provoke the ire of Beijing.
the destroyer USS Chung Hoon “conducted a routine transit through the Taiwan Strait on January 5 through waters where freedoms of navigation and overflight apply under international law,” the U.S. Navy said in a statement.
“The transit of the Chung-Hoon through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” the statement added.
The term “Indo-Pacific” is regularly used by the American administration to designate the Asia-Pacific region.
“The armed forces of the United States fly, sail, and operate wherever international law permits,” the US Navy said.
Relations between Beijing and Taipei, already tense, deteriorated sharply in 2022, China having multiplied military maneuvers around the island which it considers part of its territory to be reconquered one day, by force if necessary.
China considers Taiwan, with a population of 24 million, to be one of its provinces, which it has yet to successfully reunify with the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
She sees with dissatisfaction the rapprochement at work in recent years between the Taiwanese authorities and the United States, which has provided the island with military support against Beijing for several decades.
Major military maneuvers were organized in 2022 to protest against the visit last August of the speaker of the American House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, raising tensions to a level not seen for several years.