Two US ships sail through Taiwan Strait

Washington, March 25 (IANS) The US sailed two ships through the Taiwan Strait, in an operation that comes as top officials from President Donald Trump's administration prepare to travel to Beijing for high-level trade talks.The US Navy destroyer, the USS Curtis Wilbur, and the US Coast Guard cutter, USCGC Bertholf, "conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit March 24-25 in accordance with international law", the Navy's Seventh fleet said in a statement on Sunday."The ships' transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific," Cdr. Clay Doss, a spokesman for the Navy's Seventh Fleet, told CNN.The US also sailed two ships through the strait in February and January.The approximately 110-mile-wide strait, which separates China and Taiwan, is seen as a potential geopolitical flashpoint should Beijing ever seek to take the island of Taiwan by force.The transit also comes the day after the White House announced that US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin would travel to China in an effort to resolve a long running trade dispute.
--IANS ksk