A US destroyer and a Canadian frigate on Tuesday sailed through the Taiwan Strait in the latest joint operation aimed at reinforcing the route’s status as an international waterway.
Beijing views as its own the narrow body of water separating Taiwan from China — one of the world’s busiest shipping channels.
The US has long used “freedom of navigation” passages through the Strait to push back against Chinese claims and Western allies have increasingly joined these operations.
Photo: AP
The USS Higgins, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, in cooperation with the Royal Canadian Navy’s Halifax-class frigate the HMCS Vancouver “conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit” on Tuesday “in accordance with international law,” the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet said.
“The ship transited through a corridor in the Strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state,” it said.
Canada said the Vancouver was en route to join an ongoing mission to enforce UN sanctions against North Korea when it transited with the Higgins.
“Today’s routine Taiwan Strait transit demonstrates our commitment to a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific,” Canadian Minister of National Defence Anita Anand said in a statement, using another term for the Asia-Pacific region.
In Taipei, the Ministry of National Defense confirmed the transit, saying in a statement that the military monitored the ships as they sailed north through the Strait, and did not see any irregularities.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) yesterday said that her ministry welcomed and affirmed the stance of the Canadian and US governments regarding the legal status of the Strait as international waters, and the need to safeguard freedom of navigation, as well as regional peace and stability.
The passage also demonstrates democratic countries’ firm opposition to China’s attempts at expansionism, Ou said.
“The Taiwanese government will continue to strengthen its self-defense capabilities, resolutely resist authoritarian expansion and aggression, and deepen the close Taiwan-US security partnership,” she said. “We will strengthen cooperation with all like-minded countries to jointly safeguard the security of the Taiwan Strait and the rules-based international order.”
A spokesman for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command called the transit “public hype.”
“The troops are always on high alert, resolutely counteract all threats and provocations, and resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” state broadcaster China Central Television quoted Colonel Shi Yi (施毅) as saying.
Australian, British, Canadian and French warships have sailed through the Strait in the past few years, sparking protests from Beijing.
The latest joint passage came a day after US President Joe Biden again declared that US troops would come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese invasion.
It was the fourth time Biden made such comments, despite Washington’s longstanding official policy of “strategic ambiguity” — designed to ward off a Chinese invasion and discourage Taiwan from provoking Beijing by formally declaring independence.
Each time after Biden’s comments, the White House said there was no change in US policy on Taiwan.
Additional reporting by CNA
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat