US ships sail through strategic Taiwan Strait, defying China

WASHINGTON D.C., Mar 25, 2019, 9News. The US has sent two ships through the Taiwan Strait in a show of force that risks antagonising China. The naval destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur and the Coast Guard cutter Bertholf carried out what Pentagon officials said was a routine transit, reported the 9News.

“The ships’ transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” a US Navy statement said.

A file photo of the USS destroyer Curtis WIlbur which sailed through the Taiwan Strait. (AAP)
“The US will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows,” it added.

The ships’ passage yesterday comes just weeks ahead of the 40th anniversary of the US Taiwan Relations Act, which is legislation that governs relations between both countries.

The act has enabled American governments to ensure Taiwan’s security while maintaining constructive relations with China.

The 160 kilometre-wide strait divides the island nation from mainland China. Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway Chinese province and objects to US defence support for self-governing Taiwan.

US President Donald Trump has elevated 40 years of informal ties with Taiwan through more open contacts and planned arms deals. China and the US are also enmeshed in a dispute over trade, copyrights and tariffs, raising economic and political frictions to their highest level in a decade.

Tensions between the two militaries have also been high over US challenges to China’s claim to sovereignty over virtually the entire South China Sea.

Last September, a Chinese destroyer came close to colliding with the destroyer USS Decatur in the South China Sea in what the U.S. Navy called an “unsafe and unprofessional maneuver.”

Taiwan has been democratically ruled for about 30 years. It allows freedom of expression and religion in contrast to China’s tight restrictions under authoritarian Communist Party rule, and remains a close U.S. ally in the Asia-Pacific region.

While China insists that Taiwan is its territory to be brought under its control by force if necessary, more than 70 per cent of Taiwanese oppose China’s goal of unification, the government’s Mainland Affairs Council spokesman said in January.

Many fear Beijing would eliminate Taiwan’s democratic institutions.

Earlier this month, Taiwan’s defence ministry said it had submitted an official request to purchase new fighter jets from the United States to “counter current enemy threats”.