The U.S. has released video of a Chinese warship sailing dangerously close to a Navy destroyer in the Taiwan Strait on Saturday.
The American warship, the USS Chung-Hoon, was conducting a "routine patrol" when the Chinese warship crossed in front of Chung-Hoon's bow at 150 yards, according to a statement from U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. The Chinese ship, the Luyang III, was operating in an "unsafe manner," the statement said.
The statement noted the U.S. destroyer and Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal were in the area "in accordance with international law."
"Chung-Hoon and Montreal's transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the combined U.S.-Canadian commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific," the statement said. "The U.S. military flies, sails, and operates safely and responsibly anywhere international law allows."
At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore this weekend, China's defense minister, Gen. Li Shangfu, said Beijing “must prevent attempts that try to use those freedom of navigation [patrols], that innocent passage, to exercise hegemony of navigation.”
The encounter comes at a tense time in U.S.-China relations following the February shootdown of a Chinese spy balloon after it transited the U.S. At the Shangri-La Dialogue, the defense minister refused to meet with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, although the two did briefly shake hands.
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