The US Navy described its patrol as a ‘routine’ exercise through the international waterway.
China’s military has accused the United States of engaging in risky behaviour in the Taiwan Strait after two US naval ships transited the international waterway.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said it had monitored the movements of the USS Ralph Johnson, a naval destroyer, and the USNS Bowditch, a survey ship, as they moved through the waterway between Monday and Wednesday.
“The US action sends the wrong signals and increases security risks,” the Eastern Theatre Command of the PLA said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Troops in the theatre are on high alert at all times and are resolute in defending national sovereignty and security as well as regional peace and stability,” Eastern Theatre spokesperson Colonel Li Xi said.
The US Navy later confirmed the movement of the two vessels through the strait, which they described as “routine” exercises.
“The transit occurred through a corridor in the Taiwan Strait that is beyond any coastal state’s territorial seas,” said Navy Commander Matthew Comer, a spokesperson at the US military’s Indo-Pacific Command.
“Within this corridor, all nations enjoy high-seas freedom of navigation, overflight, and other internationally lawful uses of the sea related to these freedoms,” Comer said.
US naval ships regularly conduct freedom of navigation exercises through the 180km-wide (111 miles) Taiwan Strait, although the navy’s patrol this week was the first of its kind since US President Donald Trump took office in January.
China claims the Taiwan Strait as domestic territory, although the UN Law of the Sea caps “territorial waters” at 12 nautical miles (22km) from the coastline.
US allies also occasionally take part in similar navigation exercises through the Taiwan Strait.
The last two confirmed missions by the US Navy were an air patrol in November and a joint patrol of the Strait in October by US and Canadian naval ships.
Naval ships from France, the Netherlands and Japan’s Self Defense Force also passed through the Strait last year.
In addition to the Taiwan Strait, China also claims sovereignty over Taiwan, a self-governed democracy of 23 million people, and regularly sends air and naval ships, and occasionally drones and balloons, in the direction of the island.
Known as “grey zone” activity, these tactics are intended to intimidate Taiwan and test its defence capability.
Since 2022, Beijing has regularly staged military exercises in the Taiwan Strait to signal its anger at Taipei for engaging in high-level meetings with US officials.
