China accuses US of provocation after buzzing American warship in Taiwan Strait.

China's Defense Minister, Gen. Li Shangfu, defended sailing a warship across the path of an American destroyer and Canadian frigate transiting the Taiwan Strait, accusing the US of provocation. He said that China doesn't have any problems with "innocent passage" but that "we must prevent attempts that try to use those freedom of navigation (patrols), that innocent passage, to exercise hegemony of navigation." The US Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, told the same forum that Washington would not "flinch in the face of bullying or coercion" from China and would continue regularly sailing through and flying over the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea to emphasize they are international waters, countering Beijing's sweeping territorial claims.