Singapore (EFE) around Taiwan.
According to a statement released today by the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Milius is sailing “close” to the Spratly Islands, which China disputes with the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei, in an exercise in defense of “freedom of navigation consistent with international law.”
In particular, the text adds that the ship carries out “normal operations” in the twelve nautical miles (the limit established by the UN to designate the sovereignty of a state in maritime territories) of the Mischief reef, in the Spratly, which China has occupied and which is disputed by Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam.
“Illegitimate claims in the South China Sea pose a serious threat to freedom of navigation,” the US statement added, in a veiled reference to Beijing.
The shipment of the US destroyer comes amid escalating tensions between China and the US, with Beijing today ending wide-ranging military exercises around Taiwan in retaliation for last Wednesday’s meeting in California (US). ) between Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy.
Likewise, Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing does not rule out invading, and the South China Sea, rich in natural resources and almost entirely claimed by China, have been the target of the US in its recent agreement with the Philippines to expand a Defense agreement that allows its troops to operate from four new military bases in the Asian archipelago.
Philippine authorities revealed a week ago the locations of those new bases, including two within 400 kilometers of Taiwan and another facing the disputed South China Sea.
Taiwan notifies the incursion of 59 planes on the last day of Chinese exercises
A total of 59 planes and eleven military ships from China made incursions this Monday morning in areas around Taiwan during the maneuvers carried out by the Chinese Army in areas near the island, the official CNA agency reported.
The source, citing the Taiwanese defense ministry, added that 39 of the Chinese planes crossed the median line of the Strait of Formosa, which in practice is an unofficial border tacitly respected by Taipei and Beijing in recent decades.
Models such as SU-30, J-10 and J-11 fighters participated in the air raid, which took place in Taiwan’s self-defined Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), which is not defined or regulated by any international treaty and is not equals its airspace.
The movements were detected until 10:00 am today (02:00 Sunday GMT).
The island’s air forces monitored the situation with combat air and naval patrols and missile systems on the ground, according to the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense, reports CNA.
In the past two years, Chinese military aircraft have carried out numerous raids on the Taiwanese ADIZ, escalating at a time when tensions between the two territories have escalated.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry on Saturday expressed its condemnation of the military exercises, describing them as “an irrational act that endangers regional security and stability.”
Beijing has considered Taiwan a rogue province since Kuomintang nationalists withdrew there in 1949 after losing the civil war to the communist army.