The US command said in a statement that the Chinese ship “performed dangerous maneuvers near the Chong Hun”, the US destroyer which sailed through the strait on Saturday.
The statement added that the Chinese ship “passed Chong Hoon from the left side and then intercepted it at 150 meters”, explaining that the destroyer “followed its course and slowed down to a speed of ten knots to avoid a collision”.
He added that the Chinese ship “passed back in front of the Chong Hoon front from the right side to the left side at a distance of two thousand meters” and continued to sail alongside the American destroyer, which approached it at a distance of less than 150 meters away.
The incident occurred as the USS Chung Hun, an Aegis-class destroyer of the US Pacific Fleet, sailed alongside the Canadian ship HMCS Montreal in the 180-kilometre-wide Taiwan Strait that separates China continental.
For his part, Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu defended the navigation of a warship in the path of an American destroyer and a Canadian frigate in the Taiwan Strait, and told Singapore on Sunday at a meeting of some of the world’s top defense officials that such patrols were allegedly “freedom of navigation”. It is a provocation towards China.
In his first international public address since becoming defense minister in March, Li told the Shangri-La Dialogue that China has no problem with free passage but “we must prevent attempts to use these freedoms of navigation (patrols) – this free passage – to exercise hegemony over navigation.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said at the same forum on Saturday that Washington “will not falter in the face of intimidation or coercion” from China, and will continue to navigate and fly over the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea to confirm that they are international waters, in the face of Beijing’s territorial claims to impose its sovereignty.
Additionally, the US said a Chinese J-16 fighter late last month performed an “unnecessarily aggressive maneuver” by intercepting a US Air Force reconnaissance aircraft over the Sea of Southern China, flying directly in front of the nose of the aircraft.
These and previous incidents have raised fears of a potential incident that could lead to an escalation between the two countries at a time when tensions are already high.
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