US Navy sails Taiwan Strait in midst of China tensions

Two US Navy warships sailed through the Strait of Taiwan on Monday in a move intended to signal the right of US ships to travel across international waters.

A 16-hour transit through the area was completed by The USS Curtis Wilbur, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, and the USS Antietam, a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser, which were shadowed by Chinese naval vessels throughout the journey.

Nate Christensen, a spokesman for US Pacific fleet, said: "The ships' transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. The U.S. Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows."

The latest transit came days after defense secretary James Mattis met with his Chinese counterpart, General Wei Fenghe, in what Mattis described as an effort to reset a strained military relationship amid the spiraling trade ware between the two countries.

In recent years, US warships have sailed through the area just once a year but Monday’s event constituted the Navy’s second visit since July.

Other recent events that have heightened tensions include a Chinese ship coming close to colliding with a US naval vessel near the disputed Gaven Reef as well as a US freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea.

While China has not yet responded to the act it is expected to exacerbate tensions between Beijing and Washington as self-governing Taiwan is seen as a rogue state in the former.

The island's political system was founded by Sun Yat-Sen’s Kuomintang or Nationalist Party, with a significant amount of its leaders and forces having fled to Taiwan following the Communist revolution and the civil war that ensued, and once Imperial Japan had been defeated, and in turn perceives the Chinese mainland as under illegitimate rule.

Beijing has stepped up military operations in the region and has intensified claims to territory and waters in the South China Sea in general over the past year.

Washington has agreed to a ‘one China policy’ where it has no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan but the Trump administration is understood to have sought closer ties with the nation.

Relations with the island nation were abandoned in 1979 as a condition for the resumption of diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing.