Canada-China relations faced challenges again as Beijing said Ottawa “undermined peace” in the contested Taiwan Strait by sending a warship there on Wednesday.
Canada’s military announced that HMCS Montreal, a 4,795-ton Halifax-class frigate armed with missiles, conducted a passage of the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday. MarineTraffic, a website that tracks ships worldwide, showed the frigate sailed through the 110-mile wide waterway from north to south as it had switched on its automatic identification system.
The Taiwan Strait separates China from the self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing views as a breakaway province, and it has never renounced the use of force to unify the island. The waterway connects the East China Sea to the north and the South China Sea to the south.
Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair said the transit reaffirmed his country’s commitment to a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific. “As outlined in our Indo-Pacific Strategy, Canada is increasing the presence of the Royal Canadian Navy in the Indo-Pacific region,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Senior Colonel Li Xi, spokesperson for China’s Eastern Theater Command, said Canada “hyped up” its frigate’s transit. “Canada’s actions have harassed and disrupted the situation and undermined peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” he claimed.
The Eastern Theater Command’s area of responsibility includes eastern mainland China and the Taiwan Strait, and one of its primary missions is conducting major operations against Taiwan. It has launched large-scale drills around Taiwan since August 2022.
China claimed it has jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait. However, the United States and its allies, as well as Taiwan, advocated the waterway is international waters where “high-seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law.”
Chinese troops are ready to respond to all “threats and provocations,” Li Xi said in a statement. Taiwan’s defense ministry on Thursday stated that its military had full control over the surrounding sea and airspace as the Montreal passed through the strait southward.
The U.S. military routinely transits the Taiwan Strait as a support to Taiwan. The last one was carried out on May 8 by USS Halsey, a 9,300-ton Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, showing Washington’s commitment to upholding the principle of freedom of navigation.
As a NATO ally of the U.S., Canada launched “Operation Horizon” last year, an Indo-Pacific mission to “promote peace, stability, and the rules-based international order.”
The Canadian navy has conducted joint transit in the Taiwan Strait with the U.S Navy before. In November 2023, the Montreal‘s sister ship HMCS Ottawa sailed through the waterway with USS Rafael Peralta, which is also an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.
Before entering the Taiwan Strait, the Montreal conducted exercises and operations in the East China Sea with navies from Japan and the U.S. on Sunday and Tuesday respectively.
The July 31 transit comes after Mélanie Joly, Canada’s foreign affairs minister, visited Beijing on July 19 and held talks with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi. They discussed opportunities and challenges in the bilateral relations, according to the meeting’s readout.
China’s Foreign Ministry
Ottawa and Beijing have faced difficulties in their relations since December 2018, when Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were arrested in China, after the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei‘s executive Meng Wanzhou was detained in Canada.
Meng was released in September 2021 following an agreement that the U.S. Department of Justice dropped an extradition request. She arrived back in China afterward while Kovrig and Spavor were released by the Chinese authorities after over 1,000 days in jail.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.