Global Courant
The US Navy has released video showing a Chinese warship nearly hitting the US destroyer in the Taiwan Strait over the weekend.
The US military on Monday released video of what it described as an “unsafe” maneuver by a Chinese warship in the Taiwan Strait over the weekend amid sharper rhetoric between the two powers.
The incident, which took place on Saturday, shows a Chinese naval vessel, Luyang III, sharply crossing the path of a US destroyer that slowed to avoid collision. The Chinese ship then straightened up and continued on a parallel course.
The American destroyer USS Chung-Hoon and the Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal conducted a so-called “freedom of navigation” in the strait between Taiwan and mainland China.
The Chinese guided-missile destroyer overtook the Chung-Hoon on the port side and then swerved over the bow at a range of about 137 meters (150 yards), according to the US Indo-Pacific Command.
Similar incidents raise tensions
China claims the democratically self-governing island of Taiwan as part of its own territory and maintains that the strait is part of its exclusive economic zone, while the US and its allies regularly sail and fly over the passage to emphasize their claim that the waters are international.
The US Indo-Pacific Command said the actions violated maritime rules of safe passage in international waters.
The Chinese ship did not perform a similar maneuver on the Canadian frigate, which was following the American destroyer.
“The transit of Chung-Hoon and Montreal through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the combined commitment of the US and Canada to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the US Indo-Pacific Command said. “The United States military flies, sails and operates safely and responsibly wherever international law permits.”
The US recently accused China of also carrying out an “unnecessarily aggressive maneuver” in the skies, saying a Chinese J-16 fighter jet flew directly in front of a US Air Force reconnaissance aircraft over southern China late last month. Sea flew.
Such incidents have raised concerns about a possible accident that could lead to a military escalation between the two countries at a time when tensions are already high in the region.
The Taiwan Strait incident occurred on a day when both US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu were in Singapore for an annual defense conference.
Li suggested on Sunday that the US and its allies created the danger with their patrols and wanted to provoke China.
“The best way is for the countries, especially countries’ naval vessels and fighter jets, not to carry out closure actions around the territory of other countries,” he said through an interpreter. “What’s the point of going there? In China we always say: ‘Mind your own business.’”
He also said that Beijing is seeking dialogue rather than confronting the United States and warned that any conflict between the two nations would create “unbearable disaster for the world”.
