In a brief message sent to AFP, the Taiwan Defense Ministry confirmed the passage of the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong through the Taiwan Strait on Friday.
“We assure that we are vigilant and monitoring all aircraft carriers and ships of the People’s Liberation Army in the vicinity of the Taiwan Strait,” the ministry added.
For its part, the US Department of Defense announced in an email to AFP that “one of our destroyers” crossed the Taiwan Strait.
The Taiwan Strait is a very sensitive area, and Beijing considers the democratic island of Taiwan as part of its territory and has expressed its desire to recover it one day and by force if necessary.
The United States, Taiwan’s main ally, considers the strait an international maritime zone and sends warships to the region in defense of “freedom of navigation”.
Movements of warships in the 180-kilometer-wide Taiwan Strait are not rare.
Shandong previously sailed through the strait in December 2020, the day after a US warship passed by.
The same aircraft carrier crossed the strait in December 2019, a few weeks before elections in Taiwan.
Washington lent its support to Taipei under President Joe Biden, agreeing to at least two arms deals for the island to bolster its air and missile defense systems. Beijing considers this support “seriously harmful” to relations between the United States and China.
China has significantly strengthened its military power in recent years, and there were 969 penetrations of Chinese warplanes in the Taiwan air defense zone in 2020, according to an AFP count, more than double the 380 breaches recorded in 2016.
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