US Navy sails warship through strategic Taiwan Strait

The US Navy on Wednesday sailed a warship through the Taiwan Strait, which separates Taiwan from China, a move likely to anger China during a period of tense relations between Washington and Beijing.

Taiwan is among a growing number of flashpoints in the US-China relationship, which include a trade war, US sanctions and China's increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea, where the United States also conducts freedom-of-navigation patrols.

The US routinely sails through the Taiwan Strait, last doing so in May, but Chinese military forces view the strategic waterway separating China from Taiwan as a priority area and often shadow US vessels that sail through the area.

China, in a national defence white paper released Wednesday, warned that it is ready for war if there was any move towards Taiwan's independence, accusing the US of undermining global stability and denouncing its arms sales to the self-ruled island.

The warship sent to the 180km Taiwan Strait was identified as the Antietam.

"The (ship's) transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific," Commander Clay Doss, a spokesman for the US Navy's Seventh Fleet, said in a statement. "The US Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows," he added.

The US has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help provide the island with the means to defend itself and is its main source of arms.

Earlier this month, the US announced possible sale of weapons to Taiwan worth $2.2bn drawing sharp reaction from Beijing, which demanded Washington cancel the deal.