The words answer each other, as heavy as the threats of a war, on the Taiwan Strait. On Wednesday June 14, the Foreign Ministry in Taipei accused Beijing of “twisting international law” saying that the strait separating the island from the mainland was part of China’s exclusive economic zone. statements that have “revealed the ambitions [de Pékin] to annex Taiwan, according to the ministry.
The Taiwanese democratic government was responding to statements by Chinese ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Monday. China “has sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait”said the latter, adding: “It is wrong to claim, as some countries do, that the strait is international waters, in order to find a pretext to manipulate Taiwan-related issues. » A warning that the Chinese military repeated privately to their American counterparts, “many times and at all levels in recent months”, according to the Bloomberg agency. Washington has been standing since 1954, the date of the first crisis in this sea passage, as an ally to Taipei, by supplying it with arms.
Because it is very wide (180 kilometers), the Taiwan Strait is assimilated to the high seas and does not require rules for the traffic of ships: for example that they follow separate lines in one direction and in the other. ‘other. According to the International Convention on the Law of the Sea of Montego Bay, the passage can take place there without constraints. “Crossing it is navigation on the high seas, with all the freedoms that go with it”confirms Collin Koh, researcher at the S. Rajaratman School of International.
Repeated military pressure
But since the invasion of Ukraine, the world is more worried than ever to see China, as Russia has just done, embark on a military adventure to take a territory, Taiwan, which it claims to be its own. name of the “one China” principle. In its near maritime environment, the Beijing regime asserts ever more firmly, by means of repeated military pressure, historical rights that the UN has never recognized. According to the official press, President Xi Jinping has also just legalized “armed forces operations” which do not relate to war, but may “preserving Chinese national sovereignty”.
On May 30, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) sent 30 planes to the island’s air identification and defense zone (a large perimeter that goes beyond national airspace), including two Sukhoi 35s, the fighters Russian bombers that Moscow employs on NATO borders. On March 17, the PLA had transited its aircraft carrier Shandong in the strait, an event that had not happened since the end of 2020.
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