The US military conducted “freedom of navigation” operations against 13 countries last year, including Taiwan, and several to challenge China’s claims in the South and East China seas, according to an annual Pentagon report released on Monday.
Multiple operations were against China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Libya, Malaysia, the Maldives, Oman, the Philippines and Vietnam, the report said.
It did not specify how many such operations were conducted against each of those countries.
Photo: AP
The US military carried out single operations against Taiwan, Nicaragua and Argentina, the department said in the report.
The freedom of navigation operations involve sending US Navy ships and military aircraft into areas where other nations have tried to limit access. The aim is to demonstrate that the international community does not accept such restrictions.
The US has repeatedly conducted operations disputing China’s maritime claims in the past few years and did so again in last year, a year in which Beijing’s land reclamation efforts in the resource-rich areas of the South China Sea led to rising tensions in the region.
A US guided-missile destroyer conducted a freedom of navigation patrol near one of China’s artificial islands in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) in October last year. Taiwan also claims the Spratly chain.
US military flights near the islands have been warned off.
US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said the navy would continue to operate in the region despite China’s protests.
The Chinese Ministry of National Defense late on Monday said in a statement on its Web site that it was deeply concerned by such operations.
“The United States carries out militarization in the South China Sea in the name of freedom of navigation and overflight, threatens coastal nations’ sovereignty and security and destroys regional peace and stability,” the ministry said.
It made the comment in response to what it said were reports of recent US military flights near the Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), an area China seized control of after a stand-off with the Philippine coast guard in 2012. Taiwan also claims the shoal.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
RSS