The United States is a “security risk creator” in the Taiwan Strait with its frequent provocations, China’s military said on Wednesday, after another US warship sailed through the sensitive waterway.The US Navy’s 7th Fleet said the destroyer USS Benfold made a “routine” transit through the Taiwan Strait through international waters “in accordance with international law”.The United States conducts such cruises about once a month, angering China, which views them as a show of support for Taiwan, a democratically-ruled island that Beijing considers Chinese territory.
The People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command said in a statement that its forces had been monitoring and “warning” the ship at all times.”Frequent provocations and show-offs by the United States fully demonstrate that the United States is a destroyer of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and a creator of security risks in the Taiwan Strait,” the statement said.Theater forces remain constantly on alert and resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The US Navy said the ship “passed through a corridor in the strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state”.”The ship’s passage through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense said the US ship had passed through the strait to the north and that the situation in the waterway was “as normal”. Benfold operates in the disputed South China Sea, where it has carried out two “freedom of navigation operations” in the past week.
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