The guided-missile destroyer USS John Finn arrives at U.S. Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia on July 16, 2025. (Kenneth Gardner/U.S. Navy)
A U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer and a survey vessel sailed through the Taiwan Strait over the weekend, the first such crossing confirmed this year.
The USS John Finn and the USNS Mary Sears made a “routine” transit of the 110-mile-wide strait on Friday and Saturday, according to an unsigned email Tuesday from the U.S. 7th Fleet. The strait separates Taiwan from mainland China.
The transit occurred in an area “beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state,” the message said.
“The transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States’ commitment to upholding freedom of navigation for all nations as a principle,” 7th Fleet said. “The United States rejects any assertion of sovereignty or jurisdiction that is inconsistent with freedoms of navigation, overflight, and other lawful uses of the sea and air.”
China until 2022 recognized an international waterway in the strait but since then claims it entirely as sovereign territory and regularly condemns the passages of U.S. and allied warships.
Naval and air forces of Chinas’ Eastern Theater Command monitored and tracked the U.S. vessels’ movements, “ensuring effective response and management,” said spokesman Senior Col. Xu Chenghua, according to a Saturday news release from China’s Ministry of National Defense.
“The troops remain on high alert to resolutely safeguard China’s national sovereignty and security, as well as regional peace and stability,” he said.
China views self-governing Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be unified with the mainland, by force if necessary.
Meanwhile, a Chinese surveillance drone entered Taiwanese airspace at 5:44 a.m. Saturday around the Taiwan-administered Pratas Island, a coral atoll in the northern part of the South China Sea, according to a news release from the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense that day.
The drone left after four minutes following a warning from Taiwan broadcast on international channels, according to the release.
“Such highly provocative and irresponsible behavior of the communist army has seriously undermined regional peace and stability, violated international law and norms, and is bound to be condemned,” the release said.
The drone was engaged in routine flight training that was “completely legitimate and lawful,” Senior Col. Tian Junli, spokesman for China’s Southern Theater command, said in a Saturday news release.
In December, China’s military conducted exercises that surrounded the island and included live-fire missile drills.
