China has warned the UK and the US after their warships sailed through the diplomatically-fraught Taiwan Strait.
Chinese naval and air forces were ordered to monitor and warn the two ships, the HMS Richmond and the USS Higgins, as they made their way through the 110-mile (180km) passage between the island and the Chinese mainland on Friday.
The pair were engaged in “trouble-making and provocation”, according to Beijing’s People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theatre Command.
The USS Higgins in the South China Sea in August. Pic: Philippine Coast Guard/AP
“The actions of the United States and Britain send the wrong signals and undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” it said in a statement.
The Ministry of Defence said the sailing was a routine passage, adding that wherever the Royal Navy operates, “it does so in full compliance with international law and norms, and exercises freedom of navigation rights in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea”.
The US Indo-Pacific Command also described the mission as a routine transit, describing the strait as “beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state.
“Navigational rights and freedoms in the Taiwan Strait should not be limited,” it said in a statement.
The British vessel, deployed in the East China Sea in 2021, is a Type 34, or Duke Class frigate, and the US ship is an Arleigh Burke-class (Flight II) Aegis guided missile destroyer.
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China’s navy said earlier on Friday that its third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, which is still undergoing sea trials, had passed through the strait as well.
Last week, a Canadian and an Australian warship made the journey along the strategic waterway.
The US and its allies, including Canada, Britain and France, send ships along the strait, which they see as being in international waters, around once a month.
In June, another British warship, the HMS Spey, sailed through the strait to “cause trouble”, in Beijing’s words.
China views Taiwan as its own territory, which Taipei rejects, and claims the strait is part of its territorial waters.
Beijing has increased its military pressure on the island over the last five years, including by staging war games nearby.
Taiwan’s top China policymaker and head of its Mainland Affairs Council, said on Friday China was preparing to invade Taiwan.
Speaking in Washington, Chiu Chui-cheng warned that if Taiwan were to fall it would cause a regional “domino effect” that would threaten US security.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned what he called China’s “destabilising plans” for a disputed atoll in the South China Sea.
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Mr Rubio said in a statement on Friday: “Beijing claiming Scarborough Reef as a nature preserve is yet another coercive attempt to advance sweeping territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea at the expense of its neighbours.”
The shoal lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone but has been under Beijing’s control since 2012.
China claims almost all the sea, which is used to transport more than $3 trillion of shipping commerce annually, despite competing claims by the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam.
