Taiwan can be an ideal relay station for US ships in the western Pacific and the South China Sea, says US researcher

Asia Times
Date: September 2, 2019
By: KG Chan

A US Navy research vessel sailed into Taiwan waters at the end of August, giving further substance to the defense cooperation between the two unofficial allies, on top of the enactment of the Taiwan Travel Act and the upcoming sale of F-16 fighter jets.

The Sally Ride, the US’s newest research ship commissioned in 2014, is anchored off the Port of Keelung in northern Taiwan.

The 3,043-tonne vessel with both the Stars and Stripes and the Taiwanese flags flying on its bow, set sail for the island from the Bay of Bengal last month and will return to Keelung for R&R at the end of this month, after a voyage to the international waters near Palau.

The ship is under the Pentagon’s US Office of Naval Research and is operated by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.    [FULL  STORY]