CHINA CLAIMS U.S. NAVY TRANSITS IN TAIWAN STRAIT ‘THREATEN PEACE’

China accused the United States on Wednesday of threatening the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait after a US warship again sailed through the sensitive waterway that separates Taiwan from its giant neighbor, Reuters reported.

The US Navy's 7th Fleet said the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur conducted a "routine Taiwan Strait transit" on Tuesday in accordance with international law.

Taiwan's Defense Ministry said the US ship had sailed in a southerly direction through the strait and the "situation was as normal." The US Navy has been conducting such operations every month or so.

"The ship's transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. The United States military will continue to fly, sail, and operate anywhere international law allows," it said.

A spokesman for China's Eastern Theater Command expressed strong opposition and condemned the move, which comes amid heightened tensions between the two powers.

"The US actions sends the wrong signals to Taiwan independence forces, deliberately disrupting the regional situation and endangering peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait," he said.

Chinese forces tracked and monitored the ship throughout its voyage, he added.

China believes Taiwan's democratically elected government is bent on a formal declaration of independence for the island, a red line for Beijing.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen says they are already an independent state called the Republic of China, its formal name.

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