US Navy Warships Transit Narrow Taiwan Strait .. Suggesting “We Will Defend Taiwan”

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

The US Navy is sending warship through the Taiwan Strait in a visible effort to demonstrate the power to freely sail anywhere international law allows and send China a signal that the Pentagon and its Pacific allies are prepared to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack. 

The US Navy’s USS Ralph Johnson, a DDG 51 Arleigh Burke class destroyer, and a Royal Canadian Navy Halifax-class Frigate transited through the Taiwan strait in what a US Navy statement says was in “accordance with international law.” 

“The ships transited through a corridor in the strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state,” a Navy essay says. 

The Navy’s published language uses the term “high-seas freedoms of navigation” in a manner that seems to align its Taiwan Strait excursion in a manner entirely consistent with its long-standing FONOPS or Freedom of Navigation Patrols in and around the South China Sea. 

US Navy “Forward Presence” & 5th-Generation Air Power

Pentagon Wargaming results of Pacific scenarios, coupled with multi-national training and war preparation exercises near Taiwan, consistently indicate the deterrence value of US Navy “forward presence” which places drones, warships. submarines and warship-launched aircraft within striking distance of Chinese forces and Taiwan. Certainly response time would be paramount to any effort to prevent a rapid Chinese annexation of Taiwan, something the Pentagon report cautions about and calls a “fait accompli” in which the PLA occupies Taiwan faster than its defenders can respond, making it too costly for any allied coalition to “extricate” an occupying Chinese force.