WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Chinese warship came within 150 yards (137 meters) of a U.S. destroyer in the Taiwan Strait in “an unsafe manner,” U.S. military officials said, as China blamed the United States for “deliberately provoking risk” in the region.
U.S. and Canadian navies were conducting a joint exercise in the strait, which separates the island of Taiwan and China, when the Chinese ship cut in front of the U.S. guided-missile destroyer Chung-Hoon forcing it to slow down to avoid a collision, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement on Saturday.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has claimed self-ruled Taiwan as its territory since the defeated Republic of China government fled to the island in 1949 after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists. Taiwan’s government says the PRC has never ruled the island and U.S. President Joe Biden has said the U.S. would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
China’s military rebuked the United States and Canada for “deliberately provoking risk” after the countries’ navies staged a rare joint sailing through the sensitive Taiwan Strait.
The U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet said the Chung-Hoon and Canada’s Montreal conducted a “routine” transit of the strait on Saturday.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Grant McCool)
