TokyocTypeface:> Against the backdrop of tensions due to China’s growing ambitions, the Japanese Navy has sent a warship through the Taiwan Strait for the first time, the Japanese news agency Kyodo reported on Thursday, citing a source familiar with the matter.
According to the report, the destroyer Sazanami traversed the narrow waterway between China and Taiwan the previous day, alongside Australian and New Zealand ships.
The Chinese military treated the passage "in accordance with the law,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said in Beijing, without giving further details.
China is highly vigilant with regard to Japan’s political intentions and has expressed its position to the Japanese side, he added. To achieve "reunification” between Taiwan and the mainland, China has threatened to retake the self-governing democratic island republic by force if it makes any formal moves towards independence and considers the Taiwan Strait part of its territory, which has sparked protests from neighbouring countries.
Japan, its ally and security guarantor the United States, and other neighbours of China accuse Beijing of increasing militarization in the region. (DPA)