Beijing fumes as US warship sails via Taiwan Strait

PRESSURE BUILT ON CHINA AS AUSTRALIA CALLED FOR A U.N. PROBE INTO ALLEGED HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN XINJIANG

BEIJING: A US warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Thursday for the first time under the Joe Biden administration, prompting a sharp response from Beijing.

The 7th Fleet’s guided missile destroyer USS John S McCain transited through the Taiwan Strait on Thursday while on a routine mission, the US Navy said. “The ship’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. The United States military will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows,” Joe Keiley, the 7th Fleet spokesperson, said in a statement.

The warship is deployed to the US 7th Fleet area of operations in support of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, the US Navy said.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said his country would “respond to all threats and provocations at any moment, and will resolutely safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity”. It is hoped that the US will play a constructive role for regional peace and stability, not the other way around, he added.

The development happened a day after the Pentagon announced that the USS Nimitz Carrier strike group was “departing the central command area of responsibility and moving into the US Indo-Pacific region”.

“It is now in the 7th Fleet area of responsibility and can be called upon for operations, training, or humanitarian exercises there,” the Pentagon added.

Report highlights China’s crackdowns abroad

The Chinese government conducts the most sophisticated and comprehensive campaign of transnational repression, targeting religious minorities like the Uighurs, political dissidents and former Communist Party members who have fled abroad, a new report said on Thursday.

Tactics range from co-opting foreign governments to detain dissidents to digital threats and coercion by proxy, said the report published by Freedom House, a top Washington-based advocacy group.

Calls for UN probe after report on alleged rapes

Australia has called for a United Nations investigation into allegations of human rights abuses against Uighurs. According to a BBC report, former detainees and a guard said they experienced or witnessed systematic rape and torture inside China’s controversial re-education camps where the UN claims anywhere from tens of thousands to “upwards of 1 million” Uighurs may have been detained.