A US guided missile destroyer sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said yesterday, calling the move “public hyping.”
The PLA Eastern Theater Command said that it had dispatched naval and air forces to monitor and warn the destroyer, which it named as the USS William P. Lawrence.
“Relevant remarks by the US have inverted right and wrong, distorted legal principles, confused the public and misled international perception,” the command said in a statement, without specifying to which comments it was referring.
Photo: AFP / Navy Media Content Operations / MC2 Andrew P. Holmes
“We are telling the US to stop their distortions and hyping, and to work together to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” it said.
The command also published a short video on its social media account of a Chinese sailor observing the US warship with a pair of binoculars from a distance.
The Ministry of National Defense has not publicly commented on the transit.
The US Navy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Its last publicly announced sailing through the Taiwan Strait was in February.
The US Navy transits the Taiwan Strait about once a month.
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