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A U.S. Navy spy plane flew through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, continuing the American military's near-monthly passage through the strategic waterway that China claims as its own.
The plane, a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft, transited the strait to demonstrate the U.S.'s "commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific," a statement by the Japan-based U.S. Seventh Fleet said. "The United States military flies, sails and operates anywhere international law allows."
The calculated display of U.S. military presence—the fifth such transit by a Navy P-8A this year—comes amid flaring cross-strait tensions between Beijing and Taipei, and China's more recent assertion that foreign militaries, including that of the U.S., cannot use the strait without permission.
China is sending ever more warplanes and warships into the strait in what Taiwanese and American officials say is an attempt to coerce the democratically ruled island's government and its public, who have been told that Taiwan's upcoming election is a choice between war and peace.
The U.S. does not formally recognize Taiwan's statehood but has been its main security provider since the end of World War II. Frequently transits by American and allied aircraft and vessels reinforce the belief—in Taipei but also Beijing—that the U.S. could intervene militarily should China chose to invade the island.
Publicly available flight-tracking data suggested the P-8A took off from Kadena Air Base in Japan's Okinawa prefecture, where the bulk of forward-deployed U.S. troops and their families are stationed. U.S. Forces Japan comprises approximately 54,000 active-duty military personnel, the most outside of U.S. territory.
Taiwan's Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that the American submarine hunter flew on a southerly route through the strait. The security situation in the area was normal, it said.
Col. Shi Yi, a spokesperson for the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, said China scrambled fighter jets to monitor the P-8A, "in accordance with laws and relegation."
Chinese forces were "on high alert at all times to resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security and regional peace and stability," Shi said.
Shi's office did not immediately respond to Newsweek's written request for comment before publication.
The U.S. has disclosed at least 11 Taiwan Strait transits by its military ships or aircraft in 2023, versus 10 the year before, according to data compiled by researcher Collin Koh of Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
Three of the warship transits this year have been accompanied by a Canadian ship, compared to one such instance last year, Koh's table shows. The figures do not include independent strait transits by U.S. allies, such as Australia's decision to sail a warship through the waters late last month.
The Navy's last transited the Taiwan Strait with a warship in early November, when the destroyer the USS Rafael Peralta and was joined by Canadian frigate the HMCS Ottawa.
The transits are similar in nature but technically a separate category to so-called freedom of navigation operations—conducted against friend and foe alike—in which the U.S. Navy asserts navigational rights in international or claimed territorial waters, as permitted by the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.
On Monday, the Navy's littoral combat ship the USS Gabrielle Giffords irked China's military by sailing past the Philippines-held Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea, in an apparent gesture of support for the U.S. ally.
As well as the Taiwan Strait, China also claims upward of 80 percent of the South China Sea within its so-called dashed line. China and the Philippines have clashed over maritime rights in the energy-rich waters in recent months.
About the writer
Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ... Read more