Japan defence force ship sails through Taiwan Strait for 1st time
This file photo shows Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer Sazanami
A Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force vessel has sailed through the Taiwan Strait for the first time, a source familiar with the matter said Thursday, in an apparent challenge to China’s growing military assertiveness in the region.
On Wednesday, 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, according to the source.
The ships were believed to be heading to the South China Sea for exercises.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi declined to comment on the issue, saying it is “a matter related to the Self-Defence Forces’ operations.”
The United States regularly sends warships through the Taiwan Strait to assert freedom of navigation in international waters. Allies including Britain have also made such transits, with the German navy recently sending its first warship through the Taiwan Strait in 22 years, drawing China’s ire.
The latest move by Japan could trigger a backlash from China. Based in Kure in Hiroshima Prefecture, the Sazanami is about 150 meters long and 17 meters wide, and can reportedly accommodate a crew of 170.
The Global Times, a tabloid affiliated with the ruling Communist Party, 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.
On Sept. 18, the Liaoning became the first Chinese aircraft carrier to enter the contiguous zone just outside Japanese territorial waters, sailing between remote islands in southern Japan from the East China Sea.
Taiwan is viewed as a potential military flashpoint in U.S.-China relations, with Beijing regarding the island as a renegade province to be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary.
China and Taiwan have been governed separately since they split in 1949 as the result of a civil war.
Tensions have been rising in recent years, with Chinese military planes frequently crossing the median line in the Taiwan Strait, a boundary Beijing and Taipei had tacitly respected for decades.
