With a more assertive China, Biden faces growing tensions in Asia 03:22 In the past two weeks, Washington has sent a guided-missile destroyer through the Taiwan Strait, demonstrating the US' continued commitment to the self-governed democratic island. The same destroyer then continued to the Paracel Islands to challenge Beijing's island claims in the South China Sea. Washington also deployed two of its massive aircraft carriers for exercises in the same waters and dispatched one of its newest destroyers to Japan. And last week it gave the region a fresh look at the Ohio, showing off the 18,000-ton guided-missile submarine as it participated in exercises with US Marines around the Japanese island of Okinawa.