This marked the first time for any JMSDF vessel to sail through one of the world’s most contentious straits in East Asia since the service was established in 1954.
The move came as Fumio Kishida administration aims to enforce Japan’s right to practice freedom of navigation in the region and then to counter China’s increasingly military activities around Japanese territory, including violating Japan’s airspace.
The Chinese government has claimed that the country “has sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait” and branded as false claims “when certain countries call the Taiwan Strait ‘international waters.'”
According to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, each country’s sovereign territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles (22.2 kilometers) beyond its coast.
Given that the narrowest part of the Taiwan Strait is 130 kilometers, that means that at least an 85-kilometer-wide stretch should be considered as international waters subject to the “freedom of the high seas” principle of international law, as Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry has pointed out.
JS Sazanami, the fourth vessel of the Takanami-class destroyers, sailed southward from the East China Sea, passed through the Taiwan Strait and moved out to the South China Sea on that day.
Jointly, Australian and New Zealand naval warships also passed through the strait. The three nations’ navies are scheduled to hold an upcoming exercise in the South China Sea.
Up to now, any Japanese administration has refrained from having any JMSDF vessel sail through the strait, mainly because Tokyo has been fearful of Beijing’s strong retaliation.
With this unprecedented move, Japan joins other Western countries engaging in freedom-of-navigation exercises.
The navies of countries that have passed through the Taiwan Strait so far include the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand and Germany. These navies have appealed for the freedom of navigation on the high seas based on international law by passing through the Taiwan Strait.
As with the other ships of the Takanami-class, JS Sazanami has a standard displacement of 4,650 tons, a crew complement of about 175, and a beam of 17.4 m.
The Sazanami left its home port of Kure Base in Hiroshima in February this year and conducted anti-piracy activities in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia in eastern Africa. It was tasked with intelligence gathering in the Gulf of Aden. It also conducted joint training with the Indian and Philippine navies. It returned to Japan in August this year.
Why was a relatively small destroyer chosen to pass through the strait rather than an Aegis ship or an Izumo-class destroyer?
On September 26, a former JMSDF captain and ship commander told Naval News as follows:
“I believe that Sazanami passed through the strait as part of training. Right from the start, the destroyers that will participate in joint training are designated to a certain extent in advance. Of course, there are cases where Aegis ships are designated, but there is a certain balance to be taken into account in terms of the training content and the ships being dispatched by other navies, so I think that the Murasame-class, Takanami-class, and Akizuki-class were deemed appropriate this time.
At this time of year, ships are busy and have to respond to various missions, so tasks must be assigned from among the few ready ships. Given the JS Suzutsuki incident, I think it is not wrong to think of a reasonably solid ship.”
A spokesperson at the JMSDF told Naval News on September 26, “We cannot comment on this matter as it concerns the operation of Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force vessels.”
As expected, China’s military today condemned the transit of a JMSDF destroyer through the Taiwan Strait.
