China’s Defense Minister Li Shangfu defended the passage of a warship through the path of a US destroyer and a Canadian frigate in the Taiwan Strait, telling a gathering of some of the world’s top defense officials in Singapore on Sunday that such patrols constituted a “freedom of navigation” provocation of Beijing.
In his first international public speech since becoming defense minister last March, he told the “Shangri-La Dialogue” forum that China does not have any problems with free passage, but “we must prevent attempts to use those freedoms associated with navigation (patrols). )—that free passage—to exercise dominance over navigation.”
And US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said at the same forum, Saturday, that Washington will not “falter in the face of bullying or coercion” by China, and will continue to sail and fly over the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea to confirm that they are international waters, in the face of Beijing’s territorial demands to impose Sovereignty.
On the same day, a US guided missile destroyer and a Canadian frigate were intercepted by a Chinese warship as they crossed the strait between the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which China says is its territory, and mainland China.
The Chinese ship overtook the US destroyer and then veered 140 meters in an “unsafe manner,” according to the US Indo-Pacific Command.
In addition, the United States said that a Chinese J-16 fighter late last month performed an “unnecessarily aggressive maneuver” while intercepting a US Air Force reconnaissance plane over the South China Sea, flying directly in front of the plane’s nose.
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2023-06-04 18:28:34
