TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A U.S. warship conducted what the U.S. Navy described as a "routine" transit through the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday (March 5).
The U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet said the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John Finn (DDG 113) "conducted a routine south-to-north Taiwan Strait transit" on Tuesday. It stated that U.S. naval vessels navigate from the South China Sea to the East China Sea through the Taiwan Strait, "and have done so for many years."
It said the ship passed through "a corridor in the Taiwan Strait that is beyond any coastal state’s territorial seas." The Seventh Fleet asserted that in this corridor "all nations enjoy high-seas freedoms of navigation, overflight, and other internationally lawful uses of the sea related to these freedoms."
This marks the second passage of a U.S. warship through the Taiwan Strait this year. The first transit of the Taiwan Strait in 2024 took place on Jan. 24, when the John Finn sailed through the body of water from north to south.
The transit comes amid tensions over the deaths of two Chinese fishermen after entering Taiwan's territorial waters off Kinmen on Feb. 14. After the boat's captain refused a request by the Taiwan Coast Guard Administration (CGA) to stop for inspection, the vessel was pursued and then capsized, killing two of the four men onboard.
Since then, the CGA and the Chinese have engaged in multiple rounds of heated negotiations on resolving disputes over the incident.
(U.S. Seventh Fleet photo)
(U.S. Seventh Fleet photo)
(U.S. Seventh Fleet photo)
(U.S. Seventh Fleet photo)
