US Navy Destroyer Sails Through Taiwan Strait to Let Beijing Know US Will Support Taiwan

The US navy sent an American Navy destroyer into the Taiwan strait, and closest it can get to Yellow sea as the People's Liberation Army Navy was doing live-fire drills near mainland China's north coast.

USS McCampbell is the sixth sail through done by the US Navy this year and signifies US support for the second term of the Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party. China strongly opposes this as the incumbent is not acquiescing to mainland China.

US stern warning to PLA's increased activity

Taiwan's defence ministry identified the American ship as the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer that did an unhindered FONOPS in the very middle of Taiwan, close to the Chinese mainland and went on a north to south direction.

Chinese vessels are notorious for accosting other Asian vessels but the destroyer went through unbothered. A defence ministry official confirmed the ship's direction, while the military is tracking the destroyer's movements and intelligence while on mission

The US Pacific Fleet posted on its Facebook page that the USS McCampbell passed through the Taiwan strait as part of operation currently in progress.

One comment on the passage of the missile destroyer is that it's a stern US warning to the intimidation done by the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) by increase military presence, close to Taiwan and the South China Sea. Considering the PLAN never shows up in very close vicinity to US warships.

According to Soong Hseik-wen, these operations done by the US Navy is the demonstration of the US to keep an eye on the fragile stability getting upset by Beijing's ambitions.

As Taiwan is evolving to a pro-independence state, China sees it fit to conduct war games to cow the Taiwanese leadership of the Tsai government and her party. Even going as far as threatening the US from supplying top rate weapons to Taiwan.

Taiwan may be a small nation, but since upgrading its weapons, even the PLAN is not willing to tangle with it. Arming Taiwan with advanced weapons has made it hard for China to invade it.

US and China are not ready to cross the line

When Tsai got elected as president in 2016, ties were cut with the mainland because of rebuking the one-China policy, which Beijing forces without talks of negotiation.

Naval exercises of the PLAN will be 11 weeks, located in the Tongshan coast in North China done in a 25km radius of the drill area, as confirmed by the China Maritime Safety Administration.

Since the coronavirus outbreak began, US and Chinese naval forces have increased activities close to Taiwan. Some are wary that both countries will have a disastrous outcome from mutual hostility.

One professor, Alexander Huang Chieh-cheng from the Tamkang University in Taipei, says that both nations are stepping their presence, but he thinks that neither is ready to fight it out. Though in Tsai's term the relationship with Beijing will not improve.

Ni Lexiong, a military analyst based in Shanghai mentioned that both the US Navy and the PLAN cannot afford getting outdone, or it will be a weakness on either of the two. The one who blinks loses, and also Huang's stand that neither side will shoot first. Ni Lexion then said China wants Taiwan and nothing else. He then said China wants Taiwan, and nothing else.

The crossing of the American destroyer in the strait is just one move to let Beijing know that the US will support Taiwan.