China vs. Japan

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Japan MSDF vessel sails through Taiwan Strait for the First Time

The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) destroyer JS Sazanami (DD-113) passed through the Taiwan Strait in waters between China and Taiwan on September 25, Japanese national lawmakers well versed in national security issues said.

This marked the first time for any JMSDF vessel to sail through one of the world’s most contentious straits in East Asia since the service was established in 1954.

The move came as Fumio Kishida administration aims to enforce Japan’s right to practice freedom of navigation in the region and then to counter China’s increasingly military activities around Japanese territory, including violating Japan’s airspace. The Chinese government has claimed that the country “has sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait” and branded as false claims “when certain countries call the Taiwan Strait ‘international waters.'” [...]

According to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, each country’s sovereign territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles (22.2 kilometers) beyond its coast.

Given that the narrowest part of the Taiwan Strait is 130 kilometers, that means that at least an 85-kilometer-wide stretch should be considered as international waters subject to the “freedom of the high seas” principle of international law, as Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry has pointed out. JS Sazanami, the fourth vessel of the Takanami-class destroyers, sailed southward from the East China Sea, passed through the Taiwan Strait and moved out to the South China Sea on that day. [...]

With this unprecedented move, Japan joins other Western countries engaging in freedom-of-navigation exercises.

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/202...irst-time/

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