Japanese Defense Force Ship Sails Through Taiwan Strait For 1St Time
Date
9/26/2024 5:09:14 AM
(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA))
TOKYO, Sept 26 (KUNA) -- A Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force vessel sailed through the Taiwan Strait for the first time amid China's growing military assertiveness in the region.
Kyodo News Agency reported Thursday, the destroyer Sazanami, along with Australian and New Zealand vessels, headed southward from the East China Sea and through the narrow waterway between China and Taiwan, a self-ruled island that China claims as its own territory.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi declined to comment on the issue, saying, "A matter related to the Self-Defense Forces' operations."
The US regularly sends warships through the Taiwan Strait to assert freedom of navigation in international waters, adding that allies including Britain have also made such transits, with the German navy recently sending its first warship through the Taiwan Strait in 22 years.
The Global Times, a newspaper affiliated with the ruling Communist Party of China, said the Chinese military had monitored the passage of the vessels.
China has been increasing its military activities around Japan, with a spy plane violating Japanese airspace near islands in Nagasaki Prefecture in late August.
Taiwan is viewed as a potential military flashpoint in US-China relations, with Beijing regarding the island as a renegade province to be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary, the report said.
China and Taiwan have been governed separately since they split in 1949 as the result of a civil war, noting tensions have been rising in recent years, with Chinese military planes frequently crossing the median line in the Taiwan Strait. (end)
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