Crossing the Taiwan Strait with the US Navy

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Dexter Filkins, Crossing the Taiwan Strait with the US Navy; In disputed waters, Chinese and American vessels vie for dominance. New Yorker (magazine), Nov 14, 2023.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/d ... it-with-the-us-navy

Quote:

" * * * the Chinese government has been carrying out an increasingly aggressive campaign to expand its claims in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. The United States and most of the world's governments regard the strait as an international waterway, free for any ship to traverse. China's leaders have declared that it belongs to their 'internal waters.' The Rafael Peralta was being dispatched to defy their claim.* * *

"The [USS] Rafael Peralta [(DDG-115); an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer], named for a marine who was killed in Iraq when he threw himself on a grenade to save his comrades, is devoid of luxury. Most of the sailors sleep in bunks stacked three high. The corridors are just wide enough to move through, the food tastes like it's from a high-school cafeteria (dinner one night was corn dogs), and the ship is rocked relentlessly by wind.

"At about 8 p.m., the Rafael Peralta and the Ottawa came so close to the southern shore of Taiwan that my cell phone, long cut off from service on the high seas, pinged to life. * * *

"Cooper [Commander Charles Cooper, the Rafael Peralta's captain] said that keeping the conflict in the realm of rhetoric was, in a way, the entire point of the US Navy's presence pin Taiwan Strait]. 'What I hope is that, every day Xi Jinping wakes up and sees us [US navy] on the horizon, he says to himself, "Today is not the day." '

Note:
(a) The Spanish surname Peralta is from places of the same name in Spain, "from Latin petra alta high rock."