Pentagon defends US warships in the Taiwan Strait, shrugs at China’s outcry
A Pentagon spokesman said the passage took place in international waters, and ‘the United States Navy has got the right to transit’
The US Defence Department said on Monday that sending two US warships through the Taiwan Strait this weekend was “legally permissible” after China accused the US of playing the “Taiwan card” as the two countries’ trade dispute heated up.
Colonel Robert Manning, director of the Pentagon’s press operations, said at a briefing that the warships’ passage through the strait was in international waters so that “the United States Navy has got the right to transit”.
Manning declined to comment on the specific timing of the passage. “We can fly, sail and operate where we want,” Manning said. “That’s legally permissible.”
Two destroyers, the USS Mustin and the USS Benfold, carried out the “routine transit through the international waters of the Taiwan Strait on July 7-8”, according to a statement by the US Pacific Fleet.
“The US Navy from time to time will transit from East China Sea to South China Sea through that area for multiple different operational reasons,” Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Logan, a spokesman at the Pentagon, told the South China Morning Post.
Logan did not elaborate on what the “operational reasons” for this passage would be.
On Sunday, China’s top Taiwan affairs official denounced the passage and accused the US of playing the “Taiwan card”.
