News Desk
ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON. A US warship passed through Taiwan Strait on Thursday, which angered China.
The US called it a routine activity but China said it was interference.
US warships in Taiwan Strait
In recent years, US warships, and those from Britain and Canada, also sailed through the sensitive strait, drawing the ire of China, which lays claims over Taiwan.
In a statement on Thursday, the US military said the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer Chung-Hoon sailed through the transit.
“The warship’s transit through the strait showed the United States’ commitment to an open and free Indo-Pacific,” the statement said.
In a statement, acspokesman for China’s embassy in Washington Liu Pengyu said that China firmly opposed the warship’s movement and urged the US to stop provocation, escalating tensions and undermining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
He said that US warships frequently flex their muscles under thw garb of exercising freedom of navigation, which was not about keeping the region free and open.
The statement said that China will continue to stay on high alert and was ready to respond to all threats to its intergrity and provocations at any time and would resolutely safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
A spokesman for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army said that it mobilsise troops to monitor the situation and guard the warsship’s transit, and “all movements were under control”.
In a statement, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said that the warship sailed in a northerly direction through the strait, that its forces had monitored its passage and observed nothing out of the ordinary.