A US Navy destroyer yesterday sailed through the Taiwan Strait to show Washington’s “commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the Seventh Fleet of the US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement.
The Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson was conducting a routine transit through international waters, the fleet said.
“The ship’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Seventh Fleet spokesperson Nicholas Lingo said in a statement. “The United States military flies, sails and operates anywhere international law allows.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
The Chinese Ministry of National Defense did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense confirmed the transit, saying in a statement that the military had a full grasp of the situation as the US warship sailed through the Strait northward, and did not spot any irregularities.
According to the US military, the last time the US Navy conducted a similar navigation was on Jan. 22, when the USS Dewey (DDG-105), an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, sailed through the Strait.
US Navy ships routinely sail through the Taiwan Strait, but yesterday’s transit came as the crisis in Ukraine continues to unfold.
Taiwan is in a heightened state of alert due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, nervous that China might try to take advantage of the situation to make a move on the nation, although the government has reported no unusual Chinese maneuvers.
The air force last night said that eight Chinese military aircraft had entered the nation’s southwestern air defense identification zone earlier in the day.
Taiwan responded by dispatching planes to monitor the Chinese aircraft, issuing radio warnings and mobilizing air defense assets, it added.
China has sent record numbers of military aircraft into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone over the past two years.
Beijing says Taiwan is the most sensitive and important issue in its relations with Washington.
A growing number of US allies have transited the Strait as Beijing intensifies its military threats toward Taiwan and solidifies its control over the disputed South China Sea.
British, Canadian, French and Australian warships have all passed through the Strait in the past few years, sparking protests from Beijing.
Collin Koh, a research fellow at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, keeps a database of declared US transits through the Strait.
Nine were conducted in 2019, followed by 15 in 2020 and 12 last year. So far this year there have been two, including the USS Ralph Johnson crossing.
Additional reporting by Wu Su-wei and AFP
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most