China holds military exercises after Pelosi's visit 1:30
(CNN)
Two US Navy warships have entered the Taiwan Strait in what is the first US naval transit in the waterway since tensions between the US and China escalated this month over a visit to the Taiwan Strait. island of the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.
The guided-missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville made the trip Sunday "through waters where the freedoms of navigation and overflight on the high seas apply in accordance with international law," the US 7th Fleet said in a statement. Japan in a statement.
He said the transit was "ongoing" and "so far there had been no interference from foreign military forces."
“These ships (are in transit) through a corridor in the strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal State.
The transit of ships through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates America's commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.
The United States military flies, sails and operates anywhere international law allows," he noted.
The Chinese military's Eastern Theater Command said it was monitoring the two ships, maintaining high alert and was "ready to thwart any provocation."
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The guided missile cruiser USS Antietam.
The strait is a 180-kilometre stretch of water that separates the autonomous democratic island of Taiwan from mainland China.
Beijing claims sovereignty over Taiwan even though China's ruling Communist Party has never controlled the island, and considers the strait to be part of its "internal waters."
The US Navy, however, says that most of the strait is in international waters.
The Navy cites an international law that defines territorial waters as extending 12 nautical miles (22.2 kilometers) from a country's coast and regularly sends its warships through the strait in what it calls freedom of navigation operations. , including the recent voyages of the guided-missile destroyers USS Benfold and USS Port Royal.
The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville.
Those transits drew angry responses from Beijing.
"The frequent provocations and boasts of the United States fully demonstrate that it is the destroyer of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the creator of security risks in the Taiwan Strait," Colonel Shi Yi said, spokesman for the People's Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command, after the Benfold transit on 19 July.
Beijing has stepped up military exercises in the strait, and the skies above it, following Pelosi's visit to the island earlier this month.
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Minutes after Pelosi landed in Taiwan on August 2, the PLA announced four days of military exercises in six areas surrounding the island.
The maneuvers included launching ballistic missiles in waters around Taiwan, numerous Chinese warships sailing into the Taiwan Strait, and dozens of People's Liberation Army fighter jets breaching the median line, the midpoint between mainland China and Taiwan that Beijing says it does not recognize but has largely respected.
Since those exercises officially ended, PLA fighter jets have continued to cross the median line every day, usually in double-digit numbers, according to Taiwan Defense Ministry statistics.
From August 8, the last of four days of drills announced the night Pelosi landed in Taiwan, through August 22, between five and 21 PLA planes crossed the median line each day.
In July, the month before Pelosi's trip, Chinese fighter jets crossed the median line just once, with an unspecified number of planes, according to Taiwan's Defense Ministry.
Additionally, Taiwan reports that between five and 14 PLA warships have been seen in the waters surrounding Taiwan.
PLA exercises continued this week, part of what is normally a peak season for Chinese drills.
China's Eastern Theater Command said on Friday it had conducted "joint combat readiness security patrols and combat training exercises with multi-service troops and weapons in the waters and airspace" around Taiwan.
That announcement came after US Senator Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, became the latest member of Congress to visit Taiwan in defiance of pressure from Beijing, saying: " I will not be intimidated by Communist China into turning its back on the island."
In tweets Friday morning, the US senator, who does not represent the Biden administration, reiterated her support for Taiwan.
“I will never bow to the Chinese Communist Party,” he said in one.
“I will continue to support the (Taiwanese) and their right to freedom and democracy.
Xi Jinping doesn't scare me,” he added later, referring to China's leader.
The United States tests nuclear-capable missiles 1:06
Nicholas Burns, the US ambassador to China, told CNN last week that Beijing's response to Pelosi's visit to Taiwan has been "an overreaction."
"We don't think there should be a crisis in US-China relations because of the visit, the peaceful visit, by the Speaker of the House of Representatives to Taiwan...it was a manufactured crisis by the government in Beijing," Burns said. in an interview from the US Embassy.
Now "it is up to the government here in Beijing to convince the rest of the world that it will act peacefully in the future," the ambassador said.
"I think there is a lot of concern around the world that China has now become an agent of instability in the Taiwan Strait and that is in nobody's interest," he said.
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Other US officials had said that Washington would not change the way the US military operates in the region.
"We will continue to fly, navigate and operate where international law allows, consistent with our long-standing commitment to freedom of navigation, and that includes conducting standard air and sea transits through the Taiwan Strait in the coming weeks," he said. Kurt Campbell, US President Joe Biden's coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, to reporters at the White House on August 12.
Chinese ambassador to Washington Qin Gang said last week that the US transits only escalate tensions.
"I call on American colleagues to exercise restraint, not to do anything that will escalate tension," Qin told reporters in Washington.
"If there is any move that damages China's territorial integrity and sovereignty, China will respond."
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