Washington
\nThe United States sent two Navy ships through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday in the third such operation this year, as the US military increases the frequency of transits through the strategic waterway despite opposition from China.<\/p>\n
The voyage risks further heightening tensions with China but will likely be viewed in self-ruled Taiwan as a sign of support from US President Donald Trump\u2019s government amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing.<\/p>\n
Pacific Fleet said in a statement. \u201cThe US Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows.\u201d It said the passage was carried out by Stockdale destroyer and Pecos, a replenishment vessel.<\/p>\n
Taiwan\u2019s Defence Ministry said it was a normal transit through international waters in the Taiwan Strait and that Taiwanese forces had monitored the passage of the ships.<\/p>\n
The latest move comes ahead of an expected meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping this week in Argentina on the sidelines of a G20 summit.<\/p>\n
The US Navy conducted a similar mission in the strait\u2019s international waters in July, which had been the first such voyage in about a year.<\/p>\n
Washington has no formal ties with Taiwan, but is bound by law to help it defend itself and is the island\u2019s main source of arms. The Pentagon says Washington has sold Taiwan more than $15 billion in weaponry since 2010.<\/p>\n
China has been ramping up pressure to assert its sovereignty over the island, which it considers a breakaway province of \u201cone China.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the weekend, Taiwan\u2019s ruling pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party suffered heavy losses in mayoral and county elections to the China-friendly Kuomintang, which has been welcomed by Beijing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington The United States sent two Navy ships through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday in the third such operation this year, as the US military increases the frequency of transits through the strategic waterway despite opposition from China. The voyage risks further heightening tensions with China but will likely be viewed in self-ruled Taiwan as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48645,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48646,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48644\/revisions\/48646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}