The warship passed through the waters on 26 April. China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Combat Command spokesman Shi Yi says on WeChat that the passage of the USS Sampson missile destroyer through the Taiwan Strait undermines peace and stability in the region.
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“This is not the first time the United States has committed such provocative actions, sending the wrong signals to the forces advocating ‘Taiwan independence’, thereby deliberately undermining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, we strongly oppose it,” Shi Yi said.
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Throughout the entire route of the destroyer through the Taiwan Strait, the PLA military organized an accompanying observation.Shi Yi says that he also emphasized that the forces of the Eastern Combat Command Zone are constantly on alert and protect state sovereignty and security, as well as regional peace and stability.
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Official relations between the central government of the PRC and its island province were interrupted in 1949, after the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek, defeated in a civil war with the Chinese Communist Party, moved to Taiwan. Business and informal contacts between the island and mainland China resumed in the late 1980s. Since the early 1990s, the parties began to contact through non-governmental organizations – the Beijing Association for the Development of Relations across the Taiwan Strait and the Taipei Foundation for Cross-Strait Exchanges.
