The guided-missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville were making the trip Sunday “through waters where freedoms of navigation and overflight on the high seas apply in accordance with international law,” the US 7th Fleet in Japan said in a statement
He said the transit was “ongoing” and that there had been no “interference from foreign military forces” so far.
“These ships (are transiting) through a corridor in the strait that lies beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state. The ships’ transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free Indo-Pacific and open. The U.S. military flies, sails and operates wherever international law allows,” he said.
The Chinese military’s Eastern Theater Command said it was monitoring the two ships, maintaining high alert and was “ready to thwart any provocation”.
The strait is a 110-mile (180-kilometer) stretch of water that separates the self-governing democratic island of Taiwan from mainland China.
Beijing claims sovereignty over Taiwan even though the Chinese Communist Party has never controlled the island, and considers the strait part of its “internal waters”.
The US Navy, however, says most of the strait is in international waters.
The Navy cites international law that defines territorial waters as extending 12 nautical miles (22.2 kilometers) from a country’s coast and regularly sends its warships through the strait in what it calls freedom of navigation operations, including the recent voyages of the guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold. and USS Port Royal.
Those transits provoked indignant responses from Beijing.
“The US’s frequent provocations and displays fully prove that the US is the destroyer of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the creator of security risks in the Taiwan Strait,” Colonel Shi Yi , spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army. Eastern Theater Command, said after Benfold’s transit on July 19.
Beijing has stepped up military maneuvers in the strait – and the skies above it – following Pelosi’s visit to the island earlier this month.
Minutes after Pelosi landed in Taiwan on August 2, the PLA announced four days of military exercises in six areas surrounding the island.
The maneuvers included launching ballistic missiles into the waters around Taiwan, numerous Chinese warships navigating the Taiwan Strait, and dozens of PLA warplanes breaching the median line, the dot between mainland China and Taiwan that Beijing says it does not recognize but had largely respected.
Since those exercises officially ended, PLA warplanes have continued to cross the median daily, usually in double-digit numbers, according to statistics from Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense. From August 8, the last of four days of exercises announced the night Pelosi landed in Taiwan, until August 22, between five and 21 PLA aircraft crossed the median line each day.
In July, the month before Pelosi’s trip, Chinese warplanes crossed the median line just once, with an unspecified number of planes, according to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry.
In addition, Taiwan reports that between five and 14 PLA warships have been seen in the waters surrounding Taiwan.
PLA exercises continued this week, part of what is normally a busy season for Chinese exercises.
China’s Eastern Theater Command said Friday it had conducted “joint combat readiness security patrols and combat training exercises with troops from multiple services and weapons in water and space air” around Taiwan.
The announcement came after US Senator Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, became the latest member of Congress to visit Taiwan in defiance of pressure from Beijing, saying : “I will not be harassed by Communist China to convert mine back to the island.”
In tweets Friday morning, the US senator, who does not represent the Biden administration, reiterated her support for Taiwan.
“I will never bow to the Chinese Communist Party,” he said in one. “I will continue with the (Taiwanese) people and their right to freedom and democracy. Xi Jinping does not scare me,” he later added, referring to China’s leader.
Nicholas Burns, the US ambassador to China, told CNN last week that Beijing’s response to Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan has been “an overreaction.”
“We don’t think there is a crisis in US-China relations because of the visit, the peaceful visit, of the Speaker of the House of Representatives to Taiwan … it was a crisis manufactured by the Beijing government.” Burns said in an interview from the US Embassy.
Now “it is up to the government here in Beijing to convince the rest of the world that it will act peacefully in the future,” the ambassador said.
“I think there’s a lot of concern around the world that China has become an agent of instability in the Taiwan Strait and that’s in nobody’s interest,” he said.
Other US officials had said Washington would not change the way the US military operates in the region.
“We will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever permitted by international law, consistent with our long-standing commitment to freedom of navigation, and this includes conducting standard air and sea traffic through the Taiwan Strait in the coming weeks,” Kurt Campbell said. US President Joe Biden’s coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, told reporters at the White House on August 12.
China’s ambassador to Washington, Qin Gang, said last week that the US transits are only heightening tensions.
“I ask American colleagues to exercise restraint, not to do anything to increase tension,” Qin told reporters in Washington. “If there is any move that harms China’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, China will respond.”