- The USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville cruisers are making a routine transit through the Strait.
- China considers Taiwan to be a breakaway Chinese territory.
- The U.S. has officially recognized only Beijing, but it has also become Taiwan’s main arms supplier.
The first such naval drill since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan earlier this month, which infuriated the Chinese government, involved two American warships, and it took place early on Sunday.
According to a statement from the Navy’s 7th Fleet, which has its headquarters in Japan, the cruisers USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville are undertaking a regular transit through the Strait, which typically lasts around 12 hours.
“The ship’s passage across the Taiwan Strait shows the United States’ dedication to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the statement reads. Anywhere that international law permits, the US military can fly, sail, and conduct operations, according to the statement.
China claimed to have closely watched the ships.
Colonel Shi Yi, speaking on behalf of the Eastern Theatre Command of the People’s Liberation Army, said that troops were “on high alert and ready to foil any provocation at any time.”
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Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan earlier this month infuriated Beijing, which views the island as a secessionist part of China and has not ruled out using force to retake it.
The nationalists established a breakaway government in Taipei after the communists won the civil war between them and the nationalists in China in 1949.
The U.S. has only officially acknowledged Beijing since the 1970s, but it has also become as Taiwan’s primary armaments supplier and international backer.
Taiwan asserts that only its 23 million citizens have the power to choose the island’s future and that the People’s Republic of China has no claim to the territory because it has never ruled it.
China has conducted extensive military exercises close to the island in retaliation for Pelosi’s visit, sending warships through the Strait, dispersing fighter aircraft, and firing long-range missiles over it.
A congressional delegation led by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, and composed of Reps. John Garamendi, Alan Lowenthal, and Don Beyer, D-Virginia, as well as Delegate Amata Coleman Radewagen, R-American Samoa, visited Taiwan almost two weeks later to a more subdued reception.
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