US Coast Guard ship transits Taiwan Strait after Blinken’s trip to China
By Brad Lendon, CNN
Seoul, South Korea (CNN) — A US Coast Guard ship “conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit” on Tuesday, according to a statement released by the US Navy.
“The Legend-class national security cutter USCGC Stratton (WMSL 752) conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit on June 20 (local time) through waters where high-seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law,” said the statement released on Wednesday.
The news of the transit comes days after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to China where he met with top officials and Chinese President Xi Jinping. During his visit, the top US diplomat said the US is not seeking to change China’s government system or oppose Beijing by strengthening alliances with its allies and that the US does not support Taiwan’s independence and has no intention of entering a conflict with China.
It is the first solo transit of the strait by a USCG cutter since 2017, according to Collin Koh, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, who keeps a database of known Taiwan Strait transits. Koh’s database notes two occasions where Coast Guard cutters have sailed the strait with US Navy destroyers.
China’s Communist Party claims Taiwan as part of its territory, despite never having controlled it, and its increasingly frequent military exercises near to and around the island have raised concerns about how far it will go to realize that claim. Xi has pointedly not ruled out the use of force.
China’s Coast Guard responded on Thursday on their official Weibo account where Gan Yu, the spokesperson of China’s Coast Guard, said that “on June 21 US Coast Guard Stratton sailed through the Taiwan Strait” and accused the US of “hyping up” the matter by announcing it publicly.
The US and China have differing accounts about the date the US ship transited through the strait.
The USCG cutter sailed in the strait from day into night, which may account for the date discrepancy with the Chinese statement, Commander Haley Sims, a spokesperson for the US Navy’s 7th Fleet, told CNN.
CNN has reached out to China’s Coast Guard.
On Wednesday, a Chinese aircraft carrier sailed through the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan’s defense ministry said, adding that the ship sailed southward and remained to the west of the median line dividing mainland China and Taiwan.
Earlier this month, the Navy said a Chinese destroyer had cut across the bow of the destroyer USS Chung-Hoon during a joint exercise between American and Canadian navy vessels in the Taiwan Strait.
According to the US, the Chinese ship came within 150 yards of the USS Chung-Hoon – less than the length of the Arleigh Burke-class ship itself.
A Chinese military spokesperson later accused Washington of “deliberately stirring up trouble and risks in the Taiwan Strait.”
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CNN’s Eric Cheung contributed to this report.
