Japan deploys warship through Taiwan Strait in historic first
- In Reports
- 04:17 PM, Sep 26, 2024
- Myind Staff
Japan has sent a destroyer through the Taiwan Strait for the first time, according to Japanese media reports. The destroyer, named Sazanami, entered the strait from the East China Sea on Wednesday morning. It took more than 10 hours to travel south and complete the passage. This move comes as China's military activity around Japan has been increasing, as reported by public broadcaster NHK and the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper on Thursday.
According to the reports, the passage was carried out with Australian and New Zealand naval vessels in advance of scheduled drills in the disputed South China Sea. The reports concerned military operations, Yoshimasa Hayashi, the top government spokesman for Japan, declined to comment on them during a routine briefing. From the Ministry of Defence, there was no immediate confirmation.
The navy of New Zealand verified that HMAS Sydney from the Australian Navy and its vessel, HMNZS Aotearoa, had crossed the strait together. The AFP news agency was informed by a spokesperson that the purpose of the first transit in seven years was to support the “right of freedom of navigation”.
The three ships' passage occurred one week after the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning made her maiden voyage between two Japanese islands close to Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory. Tokyo declared the incident "totally unacceptable" and stated that the ships had entered its contiguous zone, which is up to 24 nautical miles (about 44 km) from the Japanese coast. China stated that it had followed international law.
Tokyo reported at the end of August that a Chinese spy plane had entered Japanese airspace close to islands on the country's southwest coast. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ordered the Taiwan Strait transit, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun, citing multiple unnamed government sources, over concern that Beijing would become more assertive if nothing was done in response to the Chinese activities. Spokesman Hayashi voiced worries about China's heightened military presence in the area on Thursday in Tokyo.
“We have a strong sense of crisis that airspace violations have occurred one after another over a short period of time,” he told a regular press conference. “We will continue to monitor the situation with strong interest.” To further establish the 180-kilometre (112-mile) strait as an international waterway, the US and its allies sent ships across it. After Berlin sent two military vessels across the strait last month, Beijing asserted its jurisdiction over the waters and charged Germany with increasing security risks.
Japan's reported Taiwan Strait transit, according to Bec Strating, an international relations professor at La Trobe University, is "part of a broader pattern of greater naval presence by countries in and beyond Asia that are concerned about China's maritime assertions," as reported by the AFP news agency. “Japan in particular has been dealing with China’s ‘grey zone’ tactics in the East China Sea,” including an increasing number of coastguard vessels sailing close to disputed islands, she stated.
In its first such test in decades, China fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday. Japan declared that it was unaware of the test beforehand and voiced "serious concern" about China's escalation of military build-up. Concerns over China prompted leaders of the Quad alliance—Australia, India, Japan, and the United States—to take further cooperative security measures in Asian waters last week.
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