U.S. military releases video of near-collision with Chinese destroyer
The U.S. military released video on June 3 showing the moment a Chinese warship sailed across the path of American and Canadian Navy ships in the Taiwan Strait. (Video: DVIDS via Reuters)
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The U.S. military released video showing the moment a Chinese navy ship sailed across the path of USS Chung-Hoon and Canada’s HMCS Montreal in the Taiwan Strait, forcing the American destroyer to slow to avoid collision. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russia’s war in Ukraine. ArrowRight The video, which was released Sunday and taken from the deck of USS Chung-Hoon, shows China’s Luyang III, a Type 052D destroyer, cutting sharply across the course of the U.S. ship before straightening out and sailing in a parallel direction.
The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said the “unsafe” maneuver, which took place Saturday, brought the Chinese vessel within 150 yards of the U.S. and Canadian ships during a routine freedom-of-navigation exercise. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Monday that Beijing “firmly opposed relevant countries creating trouble” in the Taiwan Strait and that the United States had provoked trouble first.
China claims Taiwan, a self-governing democracy of 23 million people, as its own territory and maintains the Taiwan Strait is part of its economic zone. The United States said the strait is part of international waters, saying its exercise with HMCS Montreal “demonstrates the combined U.S.-Canadian commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
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The near miss in the Taiwan Strait came two weeks after what U.S. officials called an “unnecessarily aggressive” encounter between Chinese and American military aircraft over the South China Sea. A Chinese fighter jet flew just several dozen feet in front of an Air Force RC-135 surveillance plane, forcing the U.S. plane into turbulence.
The encounters dealt a blow to recent efforts in easing the diplomatic standoff between the United States and China after the U.S. military shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon in February. Beijing has hinted at a willingness to move past the incident, and President Biden spoke of a potential “thaw” in U.S.-China relations last month.
Video released by the Department of Defense on May 30 shows a Chinese fighter jet forcing a U.S. plane into turbulence over the South China Sea. (Video: Department of Defense)
Over the weekend, U.S. and Chinese defense officials publicly accused each other of stoking tensions in the Taiwan Strait at separate events after Beijing rejected a U.S. request to meet privately.
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On Saturday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington would not accept “coercion and bullying” of allies and partners by China and cautioned the Chinese military against “unprofessional” intercepts by warplanes above the South China Sea.
Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu on Sunday accused “some countries” of “wantonly meddling in other countries’ internal affairs” and building up “exclusive military alliances” in the Asia-Pacific.
On Sunday, before the video was released, Li suggested that the United States and its allies were intent on provoking China. “Why does all the friction between military aircraft and warships that you mentioned happen near China’s territorial airspace and waters?” he asked. “What are you doing hanging around other people’s houses?”
“In our language, we’d say: Mind your own people, mind your own ships and mind your own aircraft.”
Vic Chiang contributed to this report.
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Source: The Washington Post
