《TAIPEI TIMES》 US weighs new warship passage through Strait

/ Reuters, SINGAPORE and WASHINGTON

The US is considering a new operation to send warships through the Taiwan Strait, US officials said, a mission aimed at ensuring free passage through the strategic waterway, but risks heightening tensions with China.

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The US Navy conducted a similar mission in the Strait’s international waters in July and any repeat would be seen in Taiwan as a fresh expression of support by US President Donald Trump’s government.

The US military declined comment and US officials who discussed the deliberations did so on condition of anonymity.

They did not discuss the potential timing.

China raised concerns over US policy toward Taiwan in talks this week with US Secretary of Defense James Mattis in Singapore.

Even as Washington mulls ordering a fresh passage through the Strait, it has been trying to explain to Beijing that its policies toward Taiwan are unchanged.

Mattis on Thursday personally delivered that message to Chinese Minister of Defense Wei Fenghe （魏鳳和） on the sidelines of an ASEAN forum.

“Minister Wei raised Taiwan and concerns about our policy. The secretary reassured Minister Wei that we haven’t changed our Taiwan policy, our ‘one China’ policy,” US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Randall Schriver said. “So it was, I think, a familiar exchange.”

The Pentagon says Washington has sold Taiwan more than US$15 billion in weaponry since 2010.

Mattis told Wei on Thursday that the world’s two largest economies needed to deepen high-level military ties to navigate tension and rein in the risk of inadvertent conflict.

Some current and former US officials have said that US warship passages in the Taiwan Strait are still too infrequent, adding that a US aircraft carrier has not transited the Strait since 2007, during the administration of former US president George W. Bush.

When the last two US warships, both destroyers, sailed through the Taiwan Strait in July, it was the first such operation in about a year.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES