Japan warship sails through Taiwan Strait for first time, reports say

Japan has for the first time ever sent a Maritime Self-Defense Force vessel through the Taiwan Strait, local media reported Thursday, in a move likely to ratchet up tensions with China.
The MSDF destroyer Sazanami sailed through the waterway on Wednesday, NHK and other media outlets said, adding that warships from Australia and New Zealand also passed through the strait on their way to joint exercises in the South China Sea.
With the unprecedented move, Japan becomes the latest U.S. ally to send warships across the narrow but strategic strait after Britain, Canada, France, Australia and Germany — the latter of which sent two warships earlier this month — in what they have said were demonstrations of the freedom of navigation.
The U.S. calls the strait “international waters,” but China, which sees self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory, claims the waterway — which is just 130 kilometers wide at its narrowest — as its own.
The transit, which came only a few days before Fumio Kishida steps down as prime minister, comes as China has ramped up military pressure in the waters and airspace around Japan.
Last week, Beijing sailed an aircraft carrier between two Japanese islands near Taiwan and sent a survey ship into Japanese territorial waters off Kagoshima Prefecture in August.
Those moves came just days after a Chinese military spy plane entered Japanese airspace for the first time. Japan called China’s actions “utterly unacceptable” and said it considered the flight a threat to the country’s safety.
In July, the MSDF destroyer Suzutsuki sailed into Chinese territorial waters, media reports said, angering Beijing. The Defense Ministry in Tokyo has not formally acknowledged that incident, but defense chief Minoru Kihara said Tuesday that the ship’s captain had been removed the same month it occurred.