China calls German warships sailing in the Taiwan strait for the first time in 22 years a security risk and US Navy Seals drill on the renegade island
The passage of two German Navy ships through the Taiwan Strait on Friday “increased security risks” in the region, the Chinese military has said. The Foreign Ministry in Beijing accused Berlin of staging a “provocation” and violating the One-China policy.
Taiwan has been de facto self-governing since 1949, when the Nationalist forces lost the Chinese Civil War to the Communists and fled to the island. Taiwan is currently recognized as a sovereign nation by only 12 countries in the world. While adhering on paper to the One-China policy, in which the government in Beijing is the sole ruling authority over Chinese territories, the US has for decades maintained unofficial relations with and supported Taipei.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning. © Johannes Neudecker/Getty Images
China insists that Taiwan is an inalienable part of its territory, with President Xi Jinping warning that Beijing could resort to military force to regain control over the island.
In a post on X on Friday, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry confirmed that a “German naval frigate and a supply ship each sailed through the Taiwan Strait from north to south today.”
The passage of the Baden-Wuerttemberg frigate and the Frankfurt am Main replenishment ship was the first of its kind in 22 years. A spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command, Senior Captain Li Xi, said that the “actions of the German side have increased security risks and sent erroneous signals.”
German Navy Headquarters
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning stressed that the “Taiwan issue is not about freedom of navigation but about China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” While Beijing respects other countries’ rights to sail in international waters, as defined under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, it firmly opposes “any act of provocation under the pretext of freedom of navigation.”
The Chinese Embassy in Berlin clarified on Friday that the “waters in the Taiwan Strait are China’s internal waters, territorial waters, contiguous zones, and exclusive economic zones from both sides to the sea.”
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Friday that “international waters are international waters, it is the shortest route, it is the safest route given the weather conditions… so we pass through.”
Despite China’s repeated protests, the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and France have sent warships through the waterway on multiple occasions.
Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander, US Pacific Fleet, salutes sideboys during the COMPACFLT change of command ceremony onboard Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, April 4, 2024. (Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Christopher Sypert/U.S. Navy photo)
The US Navy’s elite special operations unit, SEAL Team Six, has been training to “help Taiwan” in case of a “Chinese invasion,” according to the Financial Times (FT). The unit carried out the 2011 mission that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan.
SEAL Team Six “has been planning and training for a Taiwan conflict for more than a year at Dam Neck, its headquarters at Virginia Beach about 250km south-east of Washington,” the FT reported on Thursday, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter.
The US has sent special forces to Taiwan in the past several years to train the island’s military against a potential attack from the mainland. No details were given about the SEAL activity, which is “highly classified.”
The US Special Operations Command referred any questions about Taiwan plans to the Pentagon, which did not comment on specific details.
The US Navy’s elite special operations unit, SEAL Team Six, has been training to “help Taiwan” in case of a “Chinese invasion,” according to the Financial Times (FT). The unit carried out the 2011 mission that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan.
SEAL Team Six “has been planning and training for a Taiwan conflict for more than a year at Dam Neck, its headquarters at Virginia Beach about 250km south-east of Washington,” the FT reported on Thursday, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter.
© US Marine Corps / Cpl. Todd F. Michalek
The US has sent special forces to Taiwan in the past several years to train the island’s military against a potential attack from the mainland. No details were given about the SEAL activity, which is “highly classified.”
The US Special Operations Command referred any questions about Taiwan plans to the Pentagon, which did not comment on specific details.
So far, the only hints of US plans for a potential conflict around Taiwan have come from Admiral Samuel Paparo, the head of the Indo-Pacific Command, in an interview in June.
“I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities so I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything,” Paparo told the Washington Post.
Source X/RT/AP/Xinhua