U.S. Navy releases video of near-collision with Chinese warship in Taiwan Strait

June 5 (UPI) -- The United States Navy released a video Monday showing a near-collision between a U.S. destroyer and a Chinese warship in the Taiwan Strait over the weekend.

The video, taken from the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon on Saturday, shows a Chinese navy ship cut across the bow of the American vessel just hundreds of feet away in a maneuver U.S. Indo-Pacific Command called "unsafe."

The Chinese destroyer overtook the Chung-hoon on its port side and crossed at 150 yards away, forcing the U.S. ship to slow its speed to ten knots to avoid a collision, the command said in a statement Saturday.

The near-miss occurred as the Chung-Hoon and the Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal were conducting a freedom of navigation operation through the strait that separates Taiwan from mainland China.

China views the democratic island of 23 million as a wayward province and has claimed sovereignty over the waters of the Taiwan Strait. The United States and its allies regularly sail through the strait to signal that it remains an international waterway.

"Chung-Hoon and Montreal's transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the combined U.S.-Canadian commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific," Indo-Pacific Command said. "The U.S. military flies, sails, and operates safely and responsibly anywhere international law allows."

The incident occurred while U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu were in attendance at the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore.

In a speech on Sunday, Gen. Li accused the United States of "provocation" and warned of the "unbearable disaster" of war between the two nations.

"They are not here for innocent passage, they are here for provocation," Li said of the U.S. warships in the Taiwan Strait.

One day earlier, Austin rebuked China for failing to work with the U.S. military on crisis management.

"I am deeply concerned that [China] has been unwilling to engage more seriously on better mechanisms for crisis management between our two militaries," Austin said in his address to the summit.

The near-collision at sea came just days after the Pentagon said a Chinese J-16 fighter jet performed "an unnecessarily aggressive maneuver" against a U.S. aircraft operating in the South China Sea last week.