China tracks U.S. Navy transit through Taiwan Strait
Feb. 12 (UPI) -- The U.S. Navy sent two vessels to transit the Taiwan Strait for the first time since President Donald Trump took office, and China tracked their progress through the disputed seaway.
The two vessels are the destroyer USS Ralph Johnson and the survey ship USNS Bowditch, which sailed through the Taiwan Strait on a north-to-south voyage lasting from Monday through Wednesday, USNI News reported.
The Johnson is an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer while the Bowditch is a Pathfinder-class survey vessel.
"Ships transit between the East China Sea and the South China Sea via the Taiwan Strait and have done so for many years," Navy Commander Matthew, a spokesman for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said Wednesday in a statement.
"The transit occurred through a corridor in the Taiwan Strait that is beyond any coastal state's territorial seas," Comer said. "Within this corridor, all nations enjoy high-seas freedom of navigation, overflight and other internationally lawful uses of the sea related to these freedoms."
The Chinese Army, Navy and Air Force tracked the two U.S. Navy vessels during their three-day voyage.
"The U.S.'s actions sent the wrong signals and increased security risks," China's People's Liberation Army spokesman Capt. Li Xi said in a statement.
"The troops of the Chinese PLA Eastern Theater Command remain on high alert and all times to resolutely safeguard China's sovereignty and security as well as regional peace and stability," Xi said.
China routinely tracks U.S. Navy transits through the Taiwan Strait, which last occurred in October when the USS Higgins and Canadian frigate HMCS Vancouver undertook the voyage.
China has laid claim to the Taiwan Strait and Taiwan, which it considers to be part of China's sovereign territory.
The Taiwan Strait spans 111 miles and is considered an international waterway.
The U.S. Navy and naval forces of allied nations commonly traverse the strait to challenge China's territorial claims and affirm its status as an international waterway controlled by no nation.
China also routinely conducts military drills and overflights near Taiwan, and Chinese officials have declared their intent to re-unify with Taiwan by 2047.
The United States and Taiwan are closely allied via the Taiwan Relations Act, which enables the United States to provide Taiwan with arms to defend the island nation and aggression from China or other nations.
Former President Joe Biden repeatedly said the United States would intervene militarily if China were to attack Taiwan.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


CBS News
23 minutes ago
- CBS News
Los Angeles mayor announces curfew as anti-ICE protests continue downtown
Mayor Karen Bass announced a curfew for downtown Los Angeles as anti-ICE protests continued on Tuesday. The curfew will begin at 8 p.m. tonight, last until Wednesday morning, and apply to one square mile of downtown L.A. For five consecutive days, protesters and law enforcement have lined the streets of downtown, resulting in nearly 200 arrests. Some of the encounters between demonstrators and police turned violent at times. The demonstrations started on Friday after several immigration raids in the Westlake District, downtown and South LA. Crowds quickly formed around federal agents during the operations. Some individuals attempted to prevent authorities from placing individuals into vans. The nearly week-long protest caught the attention of President Trump, who deployed thousands of troops from the California National Guard and 700 U.S. Marines to protect federal buildings, against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom. "Donald Trump is putting fuel on this fire. Commandeering a state's National Guard without consulting the Governor of that state is illegal and immoral," Newsom wrote Sunday on X. "California will be taking him to court."


New York Post
23 minutes ago
- New York Post
Mikie Sherrill beats crowded field to become Democratic candidate for NJ governor
US Rep. and former prosecutor and Navy helicopter pilot Mikie Sherrill will be the state's Democratic nominee for governor in November after defeating five Dem opponents in Tuesday's party primary. Sherrill, 53, a mother of four and four-term congresswoman representing parts of Essex, Morris and Passaic counties, garnered an early lead in pre-primary polling in large part because of her impressive resume, which included a stint as a federal prosecutor. She tallied 34.6% of the vote when the Associated Press projected her to win at 8:39 p.m. ET. Advertisement Rep. Mikie Sherrill has won New Jersey's Democratic primary for governor. AP Photo/Heather Khalifa Sherill of Montclair beat out Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, US Rep. Josh Gottheimer, New Jersey Education Association union President Sean Spiller and former state Sen. Steve Sweeney for the nod. Fulop was netting 17.8% of the vote and Baraka, Gottheimer, Spiller and Sweeney all had less than 14% support when the race was called. Advertisement In addition to Sherill enjoying a solid polling lead heading into the primary, she also had won the support of much of the Garden State's Democratic Party apparatus. In Congress, Sherrill serves on the House Committee on Armed Services and its Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. She also is a member of caucuses including the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues, the New Democrat Coalition and the Rare Disease Caucus. Her campaign centered around the affordability crisis in Jersey affecting everything from healthcare costs to grocery prices. She also regularly spoke out against the Trump administration as well as Elon Musk, accusing them of working to 'dismantle' social programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Sherrill pledged if elected as governor to work to lower prescription drug costs while requiring more transparency in healthcare pricing and directing the state's attorney general to go after practices such as price gouging, monopolies and insurers denying coverage. Advertisement Sherrill posing for photos with supporters at a 'Get Out the Vote' rally in Elizabeth on June 7, 2025. AP Photo/Heather Khalifa She also champions shared services for municipalities and school districts to help spread some of the cost around in an effort to lower property taxes and supports the expansion of the state's Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit. The New Jersey gubernatorial election is scheduled for Nov. 4.


CNBC
27 minutes ago
- CNBC
Trump tariffs may remain in effect while appeals proceed, U.S. appeals court rules
A federal appeals court allowed President Donald Trump's most sweeping tariffs to remain in effect on Tuesday while it reviews a lower court decision blocking them on grounds that Trump had exceeded his authority by imposing them. The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. means Trump may continue to enforce, for now, his "Liberation Day" tariffs on imports from most U.S. trading partners, as well as a separate set of tariffs levied on Canada, China and Mexico. The appeals court has yet to rule on whether the tariffs are permissible under an emergency economic powers act that Trump cited to justify them, but it allowed the tariffs to remain in place while the appeals play out. The Federal Circuit said the litigation raised issues of "exceptional importance" warranting the court to take the rare step of having the 11-member court hear the appeal, rather than have it go before a three-judge panel first. It scheduled arguments for July 31. The tariffs, used by Trump as negotiating leverage with U.S. trading partners, and their on-again, off-again nature have shocked markets and whipsawed companies of all sizes as they seek to manage supply chains, production, staffing and prices. The ruling has no impact on other tariffs levied under more traditional legal authority, such as tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled on May 28 that the U.S. Constitution gave Congress, not the president, the power to levy taxes and tariffs, and that the president had exceeded his authority by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law intended to address "unusual and extraordinary" threats during national emergencies. The Trump administration quickly appealed the ruling, and the Federal Circuit in Washington put the lower court decision on hold the next day while it considered whether to impose a longer-term pause. The ruling came in a pair of lawsuits, one filed by the nonpartisan Liberty Justice Center on behalf of five small U.S. businesses that import goods from countries targeted by the duties and the other by 12 U.S. states. Trump has claimed broad authority to set tariffs under IEEPA. The 1977 law has historically been used to impose sanctions on enemies of the U.S. or freeze their assets. Trump is the first U.S. president to use it to impose tariffs. Trump has said that the tariffs imposed in February on Canada, China and Mexico were to fight illegal fentanyl trafficking at U.S. borders, denied by the three countries, and that the across-the-board tariffs on all U.S. trading partners imposed in April were a response to the U.S. trade deficit. The states and small businesses had argued the tariffs were not a legal or appropriate way to address those matters, and the small businesses argued that the decades-long U.S. practice of buying more goods than it exports does not qualify as an emergency that would trigger IEEPA. At least five other court cases have challenged the tariffs justified under the emergency economic powers act, including other small businesses and the state of California. One of those cases, in federal court in Washington, D.C., also resulted in an initial ruling against the tariffs, and no court has yet backed the unlimited emergency tariff authority Trump has claimed.