Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Li Shangfu has defended sailing a warship across the path of an American destroyer and Canadian frigate transiting the Taiwan Strait.
Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu salutes before delivering his speech on the last day of the 20th International Institute for Strategic Studies Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's annual defense and security forum, in Singapore, Sunday, June 4, 2023. Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu salutes before delivering his speech on the last day of the 20th International Institute for Strategic Studies Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's annual defense and security forum, in Singapore, Sunday, June 4, 2023.
In his first international public address since becoming defense minister in March, Gen. Li Shangfu told the Shangri-La Dialogue that China doesn’t have any problems with “innocent passage” but that “we must prevent attempts that try to use those freedom of navigation , that innocent passage, to exercise hegemony of navigation.”
That same day, as a U.S. guided-missile destroyer and a Canadian frigate were intercepted by a Chinese warship as they transited the strait between the self-governed island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, and mainland China. The Chinese vessel overtook the American ship and then veered across its bow at a distance of 150 yards in an “unsafe manner,” according to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
Those and previous incidents have raised concerns of a possible accident occurring that could lead to an escalation between the two nations at a time when tensions are already high.
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