US ‘troublemaking’ in Taiwan Straits threatens regional peace, stability—China

BEIJING — The United States’ troublemaking moves in the Taiwan Straits are a real threat to regional peace and stability and are extremely dangerous, a Chinese military spokesman said on Wednesday afternoon, responding to a US warship’s passage through the straits on Tuesday.

Senior Colonel Zhang Chunhui, spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command, said in a statement that the command mobilized its air and naval units to follow and monitor the USS Mustin, an Arleigh Burkeclass guided-missile destroyer, as the warship sailed through the Taiwan Straits. He did not give further details of the operation.

The officer said that the US had engaged in a succession of “negative acts” concerning Taiwan recently. Such moves sent misleading signals to separatist forces in Taiwan and posed a severe threat to peace and stability in the straits.

Any words or moves that compromise the one-China principle and provoke trouble in the Taiwan Straits are not in the interests of China, the US and people on both sides of the straits, Zhang said, adding that they are harmful to regional peace and stability and are extremely dangerous.

The PLA Eastern Theater Command will stay on high alert and will firmly safeguard China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as peace and stability in the straits, he said.

Tuesday’s move by the USS Mustin, operating as part of the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group, marked the 10th transit by a US warship in the Taiwan Straits this year, said a brief statement from the US Pacific Fleet.

The passage through the straits came two days after the USS Mustin performed a joint drill with the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force’s destroyer JS Suzutsuki in the East China Sea, according to a report from the US Naval Institute News.