By Lucy Craymer, Ben Blanchard and Yimou Lee
WELLINGTON/TAIPEI, Dec 9 (Reuters) – The New Zealand navy’s largest ship encountered a Taiwanese warship as it sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait last month, the country’s armed forces said on Tuesday, as they published a rare picture of what happened.
The oiler the HMNZS Aotearoa sailed from the South China Sea to the North Asian region via the Taiwan Strait on November 5, and was shadowed by seven different Chinese warships which maintained a safe and professional distance, the New Zealand Defence Force has previously said.
In a picture on its website on Monday accompanying a story about the ship’s Asia mission, the defence force showed a New Zealand sailor watching through binoculars a warship in the distance, though it did not identify the ship.
A New Zealand Defence Force spokesperson told Reuters that the ship was the Taiwanese warship the Cheng Kung which the HMNZS Aotearoa “briefly encountered” while in the strait.
Taiwan’s defence ministry declined immediate comment.
While Taiwan does monitor foreign warships in the strait, it is highly unusual for a picture of a Taiwanese warship doing so to appear publicly.
The Cheng Kung is a heavily armed Taiwan-built frigate based on the Oliver Hazard Perry class of the U.S. navy.
A senior Taiwan security official briefed on the matter said it is standard practice for Taiwan to provide an “escort” to foreign vessels from like-minded countries transiting the strait, knowing that such ships are often harassed or subjected to mock attacks by China’s military.
“It is to ensure that communist ships and aircraft are unable to further harass them,” said the official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
New Zealand, like most countries, has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but Taipei sees it as an important like-minded democratic partner and both maintain de facto embassies in each other’s capitals.
U.S. warships sail through the strait every few months, to the anger of Beijing, and some U.S. allies, such as Australia, Britain and Canada, have also made occasional transits.
Taiwan welcomes these transits as support for freedom of navigation over a waterway Beijing claims sovereignty over.
Tsai Ming-yen, director-general of the Taiwan National Security Bureau, said this month that Taiwan shares intelligence with international partners when they operate in those waters, adding that China’s military sometimes simulates attacks on foreign naval vessels in the strait.
China, which has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, has over the past five years stepped up military activities around the island, including staging war games.
Taiwan’s democratically elected government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.
(Reporting by Lucy Craymer, Ben Blanchard and Yimou Lee; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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