The US nuclear war submarine USS Connecticut that had hit a previously unknown underwater object on Oct. 2 collided with an underwater mountain, according to a US Navy investigation that uncovered details of the South China Sea accident .
“The investigation determined that the USS Connecticut was stranded on an unknown underwater mountain while operating in international waters in the Indo-Pacific region,” a 7th Fleet spokesperson told CNN, operating in the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Although some crew members were injured and the submarine structure was damaged, the nuclear power plant was not hit. Nobody died in the accident. Details of the investigation were submitted to Vice Admiral Karl Thomas, commander of the 7th Fleet. He will decide the next actions to be taken and whether anyone will be held responsible.
The accident came at a sensitive time in US-China relations. At the time, the Chinese military was sending aircraft to Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone. On the day of the collision, China had sent 39 aircraft. Two days later, 56 aircraft were in the area in a 24-hour period, a record number so far.
Even though the number of raids decreased in October, they resumed on Sunday (31). Taiwan’s Defense Ministry Chiu Kuo-cheng said eight Chinese aircraft entered the Air Defense Identification Zone, and on Monday, six more were identified.
Meanwhile, tensions between Washington and Beijing have increased. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for Taiwan to have “significant participation” in the United Nations (UN), saying that “it was not a political issue, but a pragmatic one.”
China rebuked the statement, saying it sees unification with Taiwan independently as one of its main goals, opposing the island’s participation in international forums.
“Should the US choose to continue using the reckless ‘Taiwan charter’, it will inevitably pose systematic risks to China-US relations, seriously undermining peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits and severely harming the US’s own interests.” , Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said a day after Blinken’s statement.
Zhao also declared that the island’s current policy is “the greatest realistic threat to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
On Thursday (28), Taiwan’s defense minister publicly acknowledged that the US military is training local troops.
“The US military is only helping with training [de nossas tropas], but they are not allocated here,” said Chiu Kuo-cheng, according to the official Taiwan Central News Agency.
(Translated text. Check the original in English here)
Reference: CNN Brasil
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