The USS Theodore Roosevelt will return to sea before Memorial Day after a coronavirus outbreak sidelined the aircraft carrier for roughly two months when more than 1,000 sailors tested positive, Navy officials said Tuesday.
Since it headed into port in Guam to deal with the outbreak, China has taken advantage of its absence and ramped up its harassment of the US military and its allies in and around the South China Sea, Fox News reported Wednesday.
Chinese forces have “continued risky and escalatory behavior,” a senior Pentagon official said.
Since mid-March, about the same time the Roosevelt docked in Guam, Chinese fighter jets have harassed American reconnaissance aircraft “at least nine times” in the South China Sea, Reed B. Werner, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Southeast Asia, told Fox News.
Werner also cited “harassment” of the Japan-based guided-missile destroyer USS Mustin last month near a Chinese aircraft carrier strike group that was patrolling through the South China Sea.
A Chinese escort ship maneuvered in an “unsafe and unprofessional way,” he said, without being specific.
The Chinese Communist Party claims control over the region’s waterways, which are also claimed by Vietnam and the Philippines, while the US insists they are international shipping routes open to all.
“We do find the current trend line very worrisome,” Werner said.
Meanwhile, China and the US have escalated a war of words over Taiwan following Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s praise of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s re-election.
In three separate statements Wednesday, China’s foreign, defense and Taiwan affairs departments lashed out at Pompeo, accusing him of violating the one-China policy and interfering in China’s internal affairs, the South China Morning Post reported.
The warnings came after Pompeo congratulated Tsai at the beginning of her second four-year term as the island’s leader Wednesday.
“Her re-election by a huge margin shows that she has earned the respect, admiration, and trust of the people on Taiwan,” Pompeo said.
“Her courage and vision in leading Taiwan’s vibrant democracy is an inspiration to the region and the world. As we look toward the future, I am confident that, with President Tsai at the helm, our partnership with Taiwan will continue to flourish.”
Tsai had vowed to defend the sovereign island from threats, and said Taiwan would not accept Beijing’s “one country, two systems” proposal for unification.
The mainland’s foreign ministry said the comments violated the formal agreements between the US and China over Taiwan.
“In their congratulatory messages, certain US officials and politicians addressed Tsai Ing-wen as ‘president’ and trumpeted the so-called partnership with Taiwan,” the ministry said.
“We have expressed our strong indignation and condemnation over this.”
The ministry said the US actions had betrayed their commitment that Beijing was the sole and legitimate government of all of China and sent a wrong signal to independence forces in Taiwan — something that would seriously endanger stability in the Taiwan Strait and harm US-China relations, the website reported.
It vowed to take “necessary corresponding actions for the mistake made by the US.”
The defense ministry also declared that the “Taiwan issue” was an internal matter for China.
“The Chinese side resolutely opposes any countries having any official forms of contact and military exchanges with Taiwan,” the ministry said.
Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesman for the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said the Chinese Communist Party had “firm resolution and full confidence” that it would defeat any external forces in their attempts to interfere in China’s internal affairs.
Pompeo on Wednesday doubled down on his support for Taiwan during a press briefing at the State Department.
“The democratic process in Taiwan has matured into a model for the world. Despite great pressure from outside, Taiwan demonstrated the wisdom of giving people a voice and a choice,” Pompeo said.
