On April 17, the Japanese destroyer JS Ikazuchitransitedthe Taiwan Strait, the fourth such transit by a Japanese warship since September 2024, and the first since Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae took office.
The date compoundedBeijing’s reaction. April 17 is the anniversary of the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, under which Japan forced China to cede Taiwan, andthe PLA Dailyaccused Tokyo of “harming the feelings of the Chinese people” by choosing that date. Beijing, which claims thestrait is Chineseinternal waters rather than an international waterway, responded with a coordinated two-pronged naval operation that analysts say goes well beyond a reaction to a single provocation.
The transit also signaled Japan’s alignment with Washington’s freedom of navigation posture. China’s Foreign Ministrycalledthe passage a “dangerous plot” to militarily intervene in the Taiwan Strait, and spokesperson Guo Jiakun stated at a press briefing that the Taiwan issue is a non-negotiable “red line.”
The United States is Taiwan’s primary security guarantor, and Japan has become an increasingly aligned partner, but Washington’s insistence on free passage through the strait is not solely about Taiwan. It reflects a broader principle: that freedom of navigation is a pre-existing customary right of all nations, one that UNCLOS codified but did not create, which the US enforces through its Freedom of Navigation Operations program.
No other nation runs a comparable program, deploys carrier strike groups globally to assert transit rights, or challenges excessive maritime claims at anything approaching the same scale. The legal weight behind Washington’s position is considerable: underUNCLOS Article 58, even within a coastal state’s exclusive economic zone, freedom of navigation cannot be restricted, meaning China has no lawful basis to block transit through the corridor of water lying outside its 12-nautical-mile territorial sea.
The economic stakes underscore the importance of keeping the strait free of China’s control. Roughly44 percentof the world’s container fleet transits the strait annually, along with 88 percent of the largest ships by tonnage. Over95 percentof Japan’s crude oil and 65 percent of South Korea’s crude oil arrive from Middle Eastern suppliers, whose tankers follow the most direct route through the Taiwan Strait.
Were China to capture Taiwan, it would control both shores of the strait, making any claim to regulate transit far more practically enforceable, even if it remained illegal under international law. Beijing has long signaled its intention to assert jurisdiction over the waterway, and physical control of both coastlines would move that ambition operational.
Beijing’s response to Japan’s transits was larger and more pointed than usual. ThePLA Eastern TheaterCommand dispatched the 133rd naval task group through the Yokoate Channel, a waterway through the Ryukyu Islands near the Japanese mainland, into the Western Pacific.
In a separate move, the aircraft carrier Liaoningtransitedthe Taiwan Strait on April 20 and headed south toward the South China Sea. The Eastern Theater Command described both movements as “routine training activity organized in accordance with the annual plan” and “not aimed at any specific country or target,” but the composition and timing of the forces suggest otherwise.
Since the main theater of the ongoing US-Philippines Balikatan exercise is centered on northern Luzon, concurrent PLAN operations by the 133rd task group in the Philippine Sea and the Liaoning in the South China Sea constitute what analystsdescribeas a tactical envelopment rehearsal targeting forces operating near Luzon, with China practicing pressure on US and allied forces from two directions at once.
Source: The Gateway Pundit
