File image of the Royal Australian Navy vessel, HMAS Toowoomba.
| Photo Credit score: Reuters
An Australian warship sailed via the Taiwan Strait, a authorities supply acknowledged on Sunday (February 22, 2026) within the latest transit of the sensitive waterway by a U.S. ally, which Chinese language state-backed media acknowledged became tracked and monitored by the nation’s protection power.
Apart from claiming sovereignty over democratically governed Taiwan, Beijing views the slender, highly strategic strait as Chinese language territorial waters and has replied aggressively now and again to international navies sailing there.
The Toowoomba, an Anzac-class frigate of the Royal Australian Navy, “conducted a routine transit via the Taiwan Strait” on Friday (February 20, 2026) and Saturday (February 21, 2026) as allotment of a “Regional Presence Deployment within the Indo-Pacific state”, the provision acknowledged.
“All interactions with international ships and airplane were safe and legit,” the provision acknowledged.
China’s state-backed Global Times newspaper, citing an unnamed Chinese language protection power supply, reported dreary on Saturday that “the Chinese language Folks’s Liberation Military implemented burly-route of monitoring, monitoring, and alert operations at some stage within the transit.”
U.S. warships traverse the strait each and every few months, enraging Beijing, and a few U.S. allies, corresponding to France, Australia, Britain and Canada, catch additionally made occasional transits.
China has ramped up its protection power presence spherical Taiwan and staged its latest war games spherical the island in dreary December.
Taiwan’s authorities rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, asserting handiest the island’s individuals can judge their future.
Printed – February 22, 2026 08:39 am IST
