The guided-missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville were on Sunday making the voyage “through waters where high seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law,” the US 7th Fleet in Japan said in a statement.
It 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 is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state. The ships’ transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. The United States military flies, sails, and operates anywhere international law allows,” it said.
The Chinese military’s Eastern Theater Command said it was monitoring the two ships, maintaining a high alert and was “ready to thwart any provocation.”
The strait is a 110-mile (180-kilometer) stretch of water that separates the democratic self-ruled island of Taiwan from mainland China.
Beijing claims sovereignty over Taiwan despite China’s ruling Communist Party never having 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.
Those transits drew angry responses from Beijing.
“The frequent provocations and showing-off by the US fully demonstrate that the US is the destroyer of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the creator of security risks in the Taiwan Strait,” Col. Shi Yi, spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command, said after the Benfold’s transit on July 19.
Beijing has ramped up military maneuvers in the strait — and the skies above it — following the visit by Pelosi to the island earlier this month.
Within minutes of Pelosi landing in Taiwan on August 2, the PLA announced four days of military exercises in six zones encircling the island.
The maneuvers included launching ballistic missiles into waters around Taiwan, numerous Chinese warships steaming in the Taiwan Strait and dozens of PLA warplanes breaching the median line — the midway point 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 line daily, usually in double-digit numbers, according to statistics from Taiwan’s Defense Ministry. From August 8, the last of the four days of drills announced the night Pelosi landed in Taiwan, through 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 jets, according to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry.
In addition, Taiwan reports between five and 14 PLA warships have been seen in the waters surrounding Taiwan.
The PLA’s exercises have been continuing this week, part of what is normally a busy season for Chinese drills.
China’s Eastern Theater Command said on Friday it had conducted “joint combat-readiness security patrols and combat training exercises involving troops of multiple services and arms in the waters and airspace” around Taiwan.
In tweets Friday morning, the US senator, who does not represent the Biden administration, reiterated her support for Taiwan.
“I will never kowtow to the…
Read More: US sends two warships through Taiwan Strait, first transit since Pelosi trip