U.S., Canadian navies sail through Taiwan Strait week after war games

A U.S. and a Canadian warship sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait together on Sunday, less than a week after China conducted a new round of war games around the island, with Beijing denouncing the mission as “disruptive.”

The U.S. navy, occasionally accompanied by ships from allied countries, transits the strait around once a month. China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, also says the strategic waterway belongs to it.

The U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet said on Monday that the destroyer USS Higgins and the Canadian frigate HMCS Vancouver made a “routine” transit on Sunday “through waters where high-seas freedom of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law.”

The transit demonstrated the United States’ and Canada’s commitment to upholding freedom of navigation for all countries, it said in a statement.

“The international community’s navigational rights and freedoms in the Taiwan Strait should not be limited. The United States rejects any assertion of sovereignty or jurisdiction that is inconsistent with freedoms of navigations, overflight, and other lawful uses of the sea and air,” it said.

China’s Eastern Theatre Command said its forces monitored and warned the ships.

“The actions of the United States and Canada caused trouble and are disruptive to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” it added.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said Taiwan was not a matter of “freedom of navigation,” but of China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

“China firmly opposes any country provoking and threatening China’s sovereignty and security in the name of ‘freedom of navigation’,” he told reporters in Beijing.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said the U.S. and Canadian ships sailed in a northerly direction and Taiwan’s armed forces kept watch, adding the situation was “as normal.”

The U.S. and Canadian navies last sailed such a joint mission in November of last year.

China staged the war games last Monday, which it said were a warning to “separatist acts” and which drew condemnation from the Taiwanese and U.S. governments.

Late on Monday, China’s Maritime Safety Administration announced there would be four hours of live fire drills on Tuesday morning in an area of the province that faces Taiwan, Fujian, to the south of the Taiwan-controlled Matsu islands.

China says it alone has jurisdiction over the nearly 180 km (110 miles) wide waterway that is a major passageway for international trade. Taiwan and the United States dispute that, saying the Taiwan Strait is an international waterway.

Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims saying only the island’s people can decide their future.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Joe Cash in Beijing; Editing by Stephen Coates, Louise Heavens and Alex Richardson)