U.S.has just sent another missile-armed warship through the Taiwan strait at a moment of intensely heightened rhetoric between the Pentagon and the People's Liberation Army (PLA).
The Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS John Finn sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, the Navy’s 7th Fleet has revealed in a press release. The warship—
...conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit March 10 (local time) in accordance with international law. The ship's transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. The United States military will continue to fly, sail, and operate anywhere international law allows.
There's been a noticeable uptick in Chinese air force intrusions in Taiwan's defense sectors as well as naval maneuvers, all of which have become a weekly occurrence.
Crucially the heightened US naval maneuvers in response follow on the heels of Tuesday Congressional testimony from Admiral Phil Davidson, the top US commander over the Indo-Pacific region, who gave his assessment that China will seek to takeover democratic Taiwan "within six years."
Here's what Adm. Davidson said during the controversial comments which elicited outrage from China's Foreign Ministry:
"I worry that they’re accelerating their ambitions to supplant the United States and our leadership role in the rules-based international order, which they’ve long said that they want to do that by 2050. I’m worried about them moving that target closer," Davidson testified.
"Taiwan is clearly one of their ambitions before then. And I think the threat is manifest during this decade, in fact in the next six years."
Meanwhile on Thursday the Navy announced additionally that another Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the USS Curtis Wilbur, has now crossed the East China Sea amid a forward deployment in the western Pacific.
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