Japan, a United States ally in the Indo-Pacific region, reportedly sent a warship to a contested waterway between China and the self-ruled island of Taiwan in early February.
Newsweek has emailed the Chinese and Taiwanese defense ministries for comment. The Japanese military did not immediately respond to a written request for comment.
Why It Matters
China has long claimed that it has “sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction” over the 110-mile-wide Taiwan Strait, a strategic waterway that links the East China Sea with the South China Sea, where China has territorial disputes with its neighboring countries.
According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a state’s sovereignty ends after the 12 nautical miles of its territorial sea. The U.S. and its allies have deployed their navies to the Taiwan Strait to assert the freedom of navigation in international waters.
What To Know
Citing a government source in Tokyo, Japan‘s Kyodo News Agency reported on Saturday that JS Akizuki, a Japanese destroyer, passed through the Taiwan Strait after a joint naval drill on February 5 in the South China Sea with the U.S., Australia, and the Philippines.
This is the second Taiwan Strait transit carried out by the Japanese navy since September 2024, when destroyer JS Sazanami navigated the waterway with Australian and New Zealand vessels, becoming Japan’s first warship to transit the strait since World War II.
The Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, reported that Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba made the “final decision” with regard to the Akizuki‘s passage through the Taiwan Strait.
Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force
The transit was a countermeasure to the Chinese navy’s increased activities around Japan’s southwestern islands, a Japanese government official told the newspaper, adding that the voyage, which was first revealed on Saturday, was a “political message” to China.
It was not immediately clear whether China had mobilized its military against the Akizuki during its voyage in the Taiwan Strait. In mid-February, the Chinese military deployed air and naval forces to monitor and track HMCS Ottawa, a Canadian frigate, in the waterway.
The Akizuki‘s transit comes after the U.S. and Japan reportedly drew up a joint operation plan for a possible Taiwan emergency. Beijing has said it “reserves all options” against the island, which Communist China considers its territory despite never having governed it.
GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images
What People Are Saying
U.S.-Japan joint leaders’ statement on February 7 read: “The two leaders emphasized the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as an indispensable element of security and prosperity for the international community. They encouraged the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues, and opposed any attempts to unilaterally change the status quo by force or coercion.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a press conference on June 13, 2022: “There is no legal basis of ‘international waters’ in the international law of the sea. It is a false claim when certain countries call the Taiwan Strait ‘international waters’ in order to find a pretext for manipulating issues related to Taiwan and threatening China’s sovereignty and security.”
What Happens Next
Japan, the U.S., and other Washington allies are likely to continue their warship transits in the Taiwan Strait to show support for Taiwan. It remains to be seen whether China will respond to that by sending its navy near the coast of America’s allies as a countermeasure.