US warship transit ‘sends wrong signals’

The PLA said it had warned a US warship that sailed through the Taiwan Strait and accused Washington of raising tensions in the latest confrontation between the two nations over the self-ruled island.

The US Navy Seventh Fleet said the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Port Royal conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit on Tuesday through international waters “in accordance with international law”.

“The ship transited through a corridor in the strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state. Port Royal’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” it said in a statement.

“The US military flies, sails and operates anywhere international law allows.”

The People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theatre Command hit back, saying the move provoked tensions across the Taiwan Strait.

“The United States frequently stages such dramas and provokes trouble, sending the wrong signals to Taiwan independence forces and deliberately intensifying tensions across the Taiwan Strait,” theatre command spokesman Shi Yi said in a statement.

“Theatre troops maintain high alert at all times, resolutely counteract all threats and provocations and resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Beijing regards Taiwan as a breakaway province to be brought under its control, by force if necessary, and it opposes formal relations between the self-ruled island and other nations.

The latest stand-off follows another spat on Tuesday, when Beijing said Washington was hollowing out the one-China principle by changing how it described its ties with Taiwan. In an updated fact sheet on its website, the State Department has removed an opening portion of the Joint Communique signed with Beijing in 1979 “the US recognised the government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government of China, acknowledging the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is a part of China”.

It also cut a statement from the second paragraph of the 2018 fact sheet that declared its long-time position that the US “does not support Taiwan independence”.

Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the update was a “petty trick to hollow out the oneChina principle” and “political manipulation to try to change the cross-strait status quo” would never succeed.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price said while some wording might have changed, “our underlying policy has not”.