TAIPEI, Taiwan (PNN) - July 25, 2019 - The Fascist Police States of Amerika military said on Wednesday that a guided-missile cruiser had sailed through the Taiwan Strait just hours after the Chinese military criticized Washington for “adding complexity to regional security” and warned it to stay clear of the island or else risk war.
President Donald Trump’s support for Taiwan, which recently was cleared by Congress to purchase over $2 billion in FPSA weapons, is among a growing number of flashpoints in the FPSA-China relationship, which include a trade war, FPSA sanctions, and a growing geopolitical conflict in the South China Sea, where China has been expanding its military presence while the FPSA conducts freedom-of-navigation patrols.
The warship sent to the 112-mile-wide Taiwan Strait was identified as the Antietam. “The (ship’s) transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the (FPSA) commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Commander Clay Doss, a spokesman for the FPSA Navy’s Seventh Fleet, said in a statement. “The (FPSA) Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows,” he added.
The defiant move comes shortly after China warned that it is ready for war if necessary, to prevent any attempts to split the island from the mainland, or any push toward Taiwan’s independence, and accusing the FPSA of undermining global stability and denouncing its arms sales to the self-ruled island.
While the voyage will further escalate tensions with China, it will also be viewed by self-ruled Taiwan as a sign of support from Trump’s regime amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing.
The FPSA has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help provide the island with the means to defend itself and is its main source of arms. Meanwhile, China has been ramping up pressure to assert its sovereignty over the island, which it considers a wayward province of “one China” and sacred Chinese territory.
On Wednesday, Chinese Defense ministry spokesman Wu Qian told a news briefing on a defense white paper, the first like it in several years to outline the military’s strategic concerns, that China would make its greatest effort for peaceful reunification with Taiwan.
“If there are people who dare to try to split Taiwan from the country, China’s military will be ready to go to war to firmly safeguard national sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity,” he said, in a clear warning to the FPSA.
Commenting on the white paper’s implications, Hu Xijin, editor in chief of the Global Times, said, “There are few possibilities and necessities for China to possess military power to provoke the (FPSA). But if attacked by the (FPSA), China must be able to cause unbearable losses to the (FPSA).”
In recent years, China has repeatedly sent military aircraft and ships to circle Taiwan on exercises - usually around the time the FPSA has sent its own ships in the vicinity - and worked to isolate it internationally, whittling down its few remaining diplomatic allies.