China deployed its navy and air force on Tuesday as a US warplane travelled through the Taiwan Strait.
According to a statement from the US 7th Fleet, the US Navy P-8A Poseidon aircraft passed through the Taiwan Strait in “international airspace.” The 7th Fleet, the US Navy’s Asia-Pacific division headquartered in Japan, said in a statement:
“By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.”
The Eastern Theatre Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said its forces remain on “high alert and effectively handle the situation.”
PLA senior colonel Cao Jun said Chinese forces had been deployed to “track and monitor the aircraft throughout its journey.”
The 7th Fleet said the transit through the Taiwan Strait “demonstrates” Washington’s commitment to a “free and open Indo-Pacific.”
The US military “flies, sails and operates wherever international law allows,” it added. This is the second transit of the US military through the Taiwan Strait since last month, when the US and Canada sent warships through the strait and China issued a warning that such actions “undermine” peace in the region.
In addition, the Chinese coast guard in the eastern province of Fujian on Tuesday conducted law enforcement patrols in the waters around the Kinmen Islands, located near self-governing Taiwan.
On Tuesday, a US P-8A anti-submarine aircraft transited the Taiwan Strait, which drew public attention. In response, the PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command dispatched naval and air forces to track and monitor the aircraft throughout its journey.
China-Taiwan Controversy
Official relations between China’s central government and its island province broke down in 1949 after the defeated Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek in the civil war with the Chinese Communist Party moved to Taiwan. Business and informal contacts between the island and mainland China resumed in the late 1980s. Since the early 1990s, the two sides have been in contact through non-governmental organisations – the Beijing-based Association for the Development of Relations Across the Taiwan Strait and the Taipei-based Cross-Strait Exchange Foundation.
The conflict between China and Taiwan escalated following a visit to the island by former United States Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in August 2022.
