WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan. 26 -- The routine passage of an American aircraft carrier through the narrow strait that divides China and Taiwan was not intended as a show of U.S. military support to Taipei, U.S. officials said Friday. The U.S. aircraft carrier Nimitz, escorted by four U.S. battle ships, passed through the Taiwan Strait Dec. 19, in what the Pentagon is calling a 'routine' transit. Taiwanese newspapers, in the wake of reports this week that China had plans in place to attack Taiwan, reported on Thursday that the Nimitz had traveled through the strait last month to signal to China the U.S. resolve to protect Taiwan. The nuclear-powered Nimitz, which was en route to a port call in Hong Kong, was diverted to the 125-mile-wide (200 km) strait because of bad weather in its planned route through the Bashi Channel, which runs between Taiwan and the Philippines, the Pentagon said. U.S. officials said the presence of the carrier was coincidental to the worsening relations between Beijing and Taipei and was by no means intended to be perceived as a rattling of American sabers. 'It was a routine transit, nothing unusual about it,' said Pentagon spokesman Marine Maj. Steve Manuel. Other U.S. military ships, including the Forestal-class aircraft carrier USS Independence, have gone through the strait many times in recent years, Navy and Pentagon officials said. The USS Belleau Wood, an amphibious assault ship, traveled through the strait in July 1995, and the USS McCluskey, a guided-missile frigate, and the destroyer USS O'Brien used the passage on Dec. 11-12, a U.S. Pacific Fleet spokesman in Hawaii said Friday.
Relations between Beijing and Taipei have increasingly soured and Taiwan has apparently latched onto the passage of the Nimitz through the strait as a sign of U.S. military support. Secretary of State Warren Christopher said this week the United States sees 'no imminent threat' to Taiwan from China. Nevertheless, he said U.S. officials have made clear their position on Taipei's security -- embodied in the Taiwan Relations Act -- during several recent meetings with the Chinese. That law, which sets the ground rules of Washington's relationship with Taipei, says the United States will 'consider any effort to settle the status of Taiwan by force a threat to peace in the western Pacific area and of great concern' to us. State Department spokesman Nick Burns said the Chinese have not lodged any complaints to the United States about the Nimitz and that the ships were using international waters which they have every right to do. The incident probably would have gone unnoticed except for heightened tensions in the region over Taiwan's press for independence. China held military drills in the Taiwan Strait just before Taiwan's parliamentary elections last month in an apparent effort to curb support for independence on the island. A New York Times article this week, quoting former U.S. officials and scholars, said China had completed plans for a limited attack on Taiwan after a March presidential election. Beijing called the report groundless. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative U.S. think tank, recommended on Jan. 22 that two U.S. aircraft carriers be dispatched near Taiwan in March to discourage mainland aggression aimed at disrupting the polls. more
