WASHINGTON: The United States sent two Navy ships through the Taiwan Strait on Monday as the US military increased the frequency of movement through the strategic waterway despite opposition from China.
The voyage risks further raising tensions with China but will likely be viewed by self-ruled Taiwan as a sign of support from the Trump administration amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing.
The movement comes as US President Donald Trump said the United States and China were “very, very close” to a deal to end a months-long trade war that has slowed global growth and disrupted markets.
The US Navy’s passage through the Taiwan Strait also came just days before a summit between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
“The ships’ transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the US Pacific Fleet said in a statement.
The two ships were identified as the destroyer Stethem and Navy cargo and ammunition ship Cesar Chavez, the statement said. The 1,800-kilometer wide Taiwan Strait separates Taiwan from China.
China expressed anger at the move.
“We resolutely oppose the United States taking provocative actions which are not conducive to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a news briefing on Tuesday.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said the US ships had left the strait following a northerly route.
Taiwan’s armed forces had kept watch on the sailing and noticed nothing out of the ordinary, so there was no cause for alarm, it said.
Washington has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help defend the island nation and is its main source of arms. The Pentagon says Washington has sold Taiwan more than $15 billion in weaponry since 2010.
China has been ramping up pressure to assert its sovereignty over the island, which it considers a wayward province of “one China” and sacred Chinese territory.
Beijing’s concerns about Taiwan are likely to factor strongly into this year’s Chinese defense budget, following a stern new year’s speech from President Xi Jinping, threatening to attack Taiwan should it not accept Chinese rule.
China has repeatedly sent military aircraft and ships to circle the island on drills in the past few years and worked to isolate the island internationally, whittling down its few remaining diplomatic allies.
The US Defense Intelligence Agency released a report earlier this year describing Taiwan as the “primary driver” for China’s military modernization, which it said had made major advances in recent years.
Democratic Taiwan has shown no interest in being run by autocratic China.
Taiwan is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the US-China relationship, which also include a trade war, US sanctions and China’s increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea, where the United States also conducts freedom of navigation patrols.
US Navy ships pass through strategic Taiwan Strait, riles China
US Navy ships pass through strategic Taiwan Strait, riles China
Zelensky visits Kupiansk as Ukraine retakes parts of frontline town
- “Today it is extremely important to achieve results on the front lines so that Ukraine can achieve results in diplomacy,” Zelensky said
- Ukraine’s Khartiia Corps of the National Guard said it had liberated several northern districts of Kupiansk
KYIV: Ukrainian forces said they had retaken parts of the northeastern town of Kupiansk and had encircled Russian troops there as President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the area and praised the operation, saying it strengthened Ukraine diplomatically.
With US-backed peace efforts underway, Moscow has said it is advancing on all fronts and that it has seized Kupiansk and the strategic city of Pokrovsk in the east. Kyiv has denied this, saying that the fighting is continuing.
In a video clip posted on his social media account on Friday, Zelensky, wearing a bulletproof vest, is seen standing in front of a sign bearing the town’s name at the entrance to Kupiansk.
“Today it is extremely important to achieve results on the front lines so that Ukraine can achieve results in diplomacy,” Zelensky said in the clip.
RUSSIANS IN KUPIANSK ‘COMPLETELY CUT OFF’, KYIV SAYS
Ukraine’s Khartiia Corps of the National Guard said it had liberated several northern districts of Kupiansk.
Russian supply routes have been cut off and several hundred Russian troops are surrounded, Khartiia said on the Telegram messaging app.
Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield reports.
“Today, we can say that the Russians in the city are completely cut off. For a long time, they couldn’t understand what was happening. But now they know they are surrounded,” Ihor Obolienskyi, Khartiia’s commander, was quoted by the Ukrainska Pravda news outlet as saying.
Russia, which began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, did not immediately comment on the Ukrainian assertions.
Ukraine’s Deep State battlefield mapping project now shows at least three villages to the north and west of Kupiansk under Ukrainian control.
Kupiansk’s northern districts are also shown as being under Ukrainian control, and the map suggests Russian troops are encircled in the city center.
Military analysts said that in November, the pace of Russian advances had picked up to its highest this year as troops moved forward, taking control of smaller villages.
Russia said on Thursday it had captured the eastern town of Siversk. Kyiv said it remained under Ukrainian control.
