Beijing issues warning as US warship sails in Taiwan Strait

BEIJING: China has issued a stern warning after a US guided missile destroyer sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait, a move that China condemned as provocative and destabilising. 

The Chinese military said on Thursday that it had dispatched naval and air forces to monitor and warn a US guided missile destroyer that sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait – the second such mission since Donald Trump became US president.

The US Navy sends ships, occasionally accompanied by vessels from allied countries, through the Taiwan Strait about once a month. China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, says the strategic waterway belongs to it.

China held its latest round of war games around Taiwan earlier this month, drawing condemnation from Taipei and concern from the United States and its allies.

The Eastern Theatre Command of China's People's Liberation Army named the ship as the guided-missile destroyer USS William P. Lawrence, and said it passed through the strait on Wednesday in an act of “public hyping”.

“Relevant remarks by the United States have inverted right and wrong, distorted legal principles, confused the public and misled international perception,” the command said in a statement, without specifying which comments it was referring to.

“We are telling the United States to stop their distortions and hyping and to work together to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”

The command also published a short video on its social media account showing a Chinese navy sailor observing the US warship with a pair of binoculars from a distance. It did not give an exact location for the encounter.

The US Indo-Pacific Command said in an emailed statement that its ship had conducted a routine transit of the strait “through waters where freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law.”

The sailing demonstrates US commitment to upholding freedom of navigation for all nations, it said.

“The international community’s navigational rights and freedoms in the Taiwan Strait should not be limited.”

The US Navy's last publicly announced sailing through the strait was in February, the month after Trump was inaugurated for a second term.