by James E. Fanell
Having relearned the power of maritime chokepoints in the Gulf, the United States must now pivot its naval focus from Iran to the far greater challenge of the Taiwan Strait and China.
Due to the Iranian regime’s institution of a “toll booth” in the Strait of Hormuz, international commercial tanker and cargo traffic dropped from its prewar levels of 135 ships a day to levels near zero. As a result, Americans have relearned the importance of maritime chokepoints. Since the start of U.S. military operations against Iran on February 28, 2026, Americans are also relearning the importance of having a large U.S. Navy fleet that ensures these strategic maritime chokepoints remain free and open.
Despite the successful destruction of the majority of Iran’s conventional military forces, especially its navy, President Trump demonstrated the importance of maritime chokepoints. He did this by implementing a blockade against all shipping going in and out of Iran, as well as by implementing Project Freedom. According to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Project Freedom brought out 125 million barrels of oil from the Persian Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz.
For much of the past 47 years, the Strait of Hormuz has been a never-ending demand signal for U.S. naval forces. Among missions that drew American focus and forces are Operation Praying Mantis in the late 1980s, escorting commercial tankers from Iranian and Iraqi attacks; supporting combat in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, and the current conflict with Iran.
For now, at least, major U.S. combat operations appear to be over. The U.S. and Iran have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), the vice president has traveled to Switzerland to further the diplomatic discussions with Iran, and the secretary of state has gone to the Middle East to shore up regional support. It is time for Americans and the U.S. Navy to finally shift their undivided attention to the Asia-Pacific region and the existential threat posed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The prospect of ending this conflict with Iran should be a strategic inflection point in the outlook of America’s national security strategy. Times have changed, and so should our focus of attention. For instance, when the Iranian revolution occurred in 1979, and the Islamic revolutionaries stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, the PLA Navy was one of the smallest, least modern navies in Asia, if not the world, for a nation of that size. Since that time—a period of American strategic blindness—the PRC built the largest navy on the planet. Inconceivably, this occurred as successive U.S. administrations gutted the U.S. Navy—from having just under 600 warships in 1986, during the Reagan presidency, to today, where the U.S. Navy has just under 300 warships. Fortunately, the Trump administration is working to reverse this trend through massively increased budgets to rebuild those numbers with programs like the Golden Fleet.
Given this strategic environment, there is another strait in the Western Pacific that merits the same level of attention from Americans and the U.S. Navy—the Taiwan Strait.
The Chinese Communist Party has made it unambiguously clear that it seeks to take control of the Taiwan Strait, just as Iran has tried to do with the Strait of Hormuz. For years, the PRC referred to the Taiwan Strait as its “territorial waters.” Then, on June 11, for the first time, the PRC officially declared the waters surrounding Taiwan, including the Taiwan Strait, as its “near-shore waters” or “coastal waters” (近海). Additionally, Beijing’s declaration stated specifically that “the waters east of Taiwan are our coastal waters where we are present, exercise jurisdiction, and govern.”
This unprecedented statement was articulated by PRC state media and essentially established a new “coastal governance model” for Beijing’s jurisdiction. In other words, the Chinese Communist Party has made the same public declaration of sovereignty over the Taiwan Strait as the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary regime in Tehran. What’s different is that, unlike the Iranian Islamic regime, which has no navy, the PLA Navy and other Chinese maritime forces have expanded their presence in and around the Taiwan Strait and are now the dominant naval force in the Western Pacific.
As recently noted by the Wall Street Journal, “for years, a lone Chinese warship was tasked with sailing up and down the Taiwan Strait.” However, beginning in 2020, the PRC increased its naval presence in the Taiwan Strait, as well as around the island. U.S. naval intelligence analysts have observed that today “five or six Chinese warships surround Taiwan at almost all times, with the count frequently higher as other naval ships make intermittent visits.” Since 2022, the PLA has conducted a series of military rehearsals, such as Justice Mission and Strait Thunder, surrounding Taiwan with warships, jet fighters, bombers, drones, and more, with the highest concentration of forces in the Taiwan Strait.
So what is to be done?
While continuing to make statements like “the United States military flies, sails, and operates anywhere international law allows” or our support for a free and open Indo-Pacific, the fact remains that the CCP has not been deterred one iota from these words alone. Likewise, sending U.S. Navy guided missile destroyers through the Taiwan Strait on a quarterly basis, as has been done by successive administrations from G. W. Bush through Trump 2.0, as part of our “Freedom of Navigation” program, has had no impact on Xi and the CCP’s intentions or the operations of the PLA naval and air forces.
What needs to be done is for the president to make a statement similar to the one he and Secretary of State Rubio have made about the Strait of Hormuz being an international waterway. They should then immediately follow that up by sending one of our Carrier Strike Groups (CSG) through the Taiwan Strait—something the U.S. Navy has not done since 2007, when the USS Kitty Hawk made an emergency northbound sortie through the Taiwan Strait to avoid a typhoon. The next best possible candidate to make such a transit would be the Abraham Lincoln CSG, which has been deployed for over seven months to the waters south of the Strait of Hormuz, enforcing America’s blockade against Iran and supporting Project Freedom.
In other words, it is time for the United States to remind Beijing and the world that the Taiwan Strait does not belong to any one nation and certainly is not the PRC’s—but is instead everyone’s strait.
* * *
James E. Fanell served as a career naval
intelligence officer whose positions included senior intelligence
officer for China at the Office of Naval Intelligence and chief of
intelligence for CTF-70, Seventh Fleet, and the U.S. Pacific Fleet. He
is the co-author of the book Embracing Communist China: America’s
Greatest Strategic Failure.
Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/06/29/it-is-everyones-strait-whether-the-strait-of-hormuz-or-the-taiwan-strait/
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