China-US ties: American warship ‘jeopardised stability’ with Taiwan Strait transit, PLA says

Passage of missile destroyer USS Mustin ‘deliberately raised the heat of the Taiwan issue … [and] sent flirtatious glances to Taiwan’s independence forces’, Chinese military spokesman says

US Navy says its military ‘will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows’

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This file photo shows a helicopter taking off from the USS Mustin, which Beijing says disrupted stability by transiting through the Taiwan Strait on Saturday. Photo: US Navy

Published: 4:00pm, 20 Dec 2020Updated: 4:00pm, 20 Dec 2020

China’s military has accused the United States of jeopardising peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait by sending a guided missile destroyer through the waterway on Saturday.

“Recently, US warships have sailed through the Taiwan Strait from time to time,” Zhang Chunhui, a spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theatre Command, said in a statement.

“They have deliberately raised the heat of the Taiwan issue … [and] sent flirtatious glances to Taiwan’s independence forces, severely jeopardising peace and stability.”

Zhang said China’s air force and navy had tracked the USS Mustin as it took part in what the US Navy called a “routine Taiwan Strait transit”.

The US was engaging in a show of force and trying to use Taiwan “as a pawn for its own selfish strategic purposes”, Zhang said, adding that China resolutely opposed such actions.

The US Navy said in a statement that the warship’s transit showed America’s 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.