US Navy Spy Plane Makes Rare Taiwan Strait Flight Ahead Of Xi White House Visit

A P-8 flew the 110-mile strait for the first time in five months. Beijing still calls the water a driveway.

Summary

The Daily Caller reports a Navy P-8A Poseidon flew southwest through the Taiwan Strait on Friday, the first publicly reported Navy P-8 transit of the roughly 110-mile-wide waterway since March 11.
U.S. 7th Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Matthew Comer called it a routine transit in international airspace from the East China Sea to the South China Sea, citing Stars and Stripes.
A related PLA note said the P-8 transited on Aug. 21 along the western side of the median line before turning south toward the Bashi Channel. Beijing claims jurisdiction. Washington and Taipei treat the strait as an international waterway.
The flight lands ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's expected September visit to Washington. Comer said the United States 'flies, sails, and operates anywhere international law allows.'

Commentary

A sailor's mother in Norfolk still irons a collar and listens for a week that does not include a collision. She never asked Beijing for a permission slip to use a strait.

That is the gap. One hundred ten miles. Five months of quiet. A Poseidon on Friday. Xi is packing for a White House photo. The plane is the caption the photo will not print: the water is not a Chinese driveway.

Ask every allied skipper: if the first P-8 in five months is 'provocation,' who sold Beijing the deed?

Comments

Does a P-8 transit before Xi's visit make the strait international again?

u/border_dad · 5h

A routine transit is a sentence. Five months without one is the part Beijing liked.

u/midwest_vet · 4h

I stood a midwatch so a patrol plane could do this boring thing. Keep it boring. Keep it weekly.

u/rule_first · 4h

International law is not a mood. Flying where it allows is the statute with wings.

u/tokyo_ally · 3h

Tokyo already knows this water. A U.S. P-8 is a handshake, not a stunt.

u/docket_rat · 3h

Watch the 'escalation' shops skip March 11. They want the photo, not the gap.

u/night_shift · 2h

I clock in on a factory floor. A 110-mile strait should not need a permission slip from a party committee.

u/texas_mom · 90m

September photos do not feed a sailor. The transit does. Keep the line.

u/gulf_watch · 55m

Median line, Bashi Channel, East to South. Those are nouns. Repeat them until Beijing gets bored.

u/press_clip · 30m

Daily Caller printed March 11, 110 miles, Comer, and the September visit. Argue those nouns.

u/soc_lead · 15m

Fly it again. Sail it again. Do not trade the strait for a handshake photo.

Paraphrased comments. Not attributed.

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