A US Coast Guard cutter passed through the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday (June 20), the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said Thursday.

The ship traveled from south to north as part of a freedom of navigation mission, per an MND press release. Throughout the process, the Taiwan military maintained full awareness of all maritime and airspace activities in the area and nothing out of the ordinary occurred, the ministry said.

The US Navy 7th Fleet confirmed the transit, identifying the ship as the USCGC Stratton. The ship conducted a “routine Taiwan Strait transit” that was in accordance with international law, the 7th Fleet said.

The Stratton’s transit through the Taiwan Strait “demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the 7th Fleet said, adding that the US “flies, sails, and operates anywhere international law allows.”

In recent years, US and other allies, including France, the UK, and Canada, have sailed through the Taiwan Strait which Beijing considers provocative. Earlier this month, the US Navy released a video of an “unsafe encounter” in the Taiwan Strait, showing a Chinese military ship cutting off a US destroyer.

On Wednesday (June 21), the MND detected China’s Shandong aircraft carrier southwest of Taiwan. It used joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to assess the situation and dispatched forces to monitor the carrier group’s movements in the Taiwan Strait.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4926007

Category: Taiwan