A Chinese warship came close to colliding, just over 100 meters from the US destroyer Chung-Hoon, engaged in a joint Canada-US freedom of navigation activity across the Taiwan Strait. This was reported by Global News, based on the testimony of one of its reporters traveling on HMCS Montreal, the Canadian frigate that participated in the mission, from May 25 in the South China Sea. According to the reconstruction, the Chinese unit set course to cut off the bow of the US destroyer whose crew advised by radio to change course to avoid the collision.
US and Canadian warships in the Taiwan Strait
The warships of the US and Canada crossed the Taiwan Strait today, in a joint mission in the delicate stretch of sea that separates Taipei from China destined to provoke Beijing’s wrath. The US Seventh Fleet announced Saturday that the Royal Canadian Navy destroyer Uss Chung-Hoon and HMCS Montreal were “engaged in a routine transit of the Taiwan Strait on June 3 (local time) in waters where the freedoms of navigation and overflight on the high seas in accordance with international law”. The joint passage, a statement said, “demonstrates the commitment of the United States and our allies and partners to a free and open Indo-Pacific”.
The US-Canada’s latest similar move is from September 2022. Last week, the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong led two other ships through the Taiwan Strait in a show of force after Beijing conducted naval and air exercises around the island rebel last April. The naval passage took place when US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu are participating in Singapore at the Shangri-La Dialogue, the most important security forum in Asia: the two leaders will not have a bilateral summit after the refusal of the Chinese side due to the lack of the “pre-requisites”. Beijing, in fact, was asking for the lifting of the US sanctions that hit Li in 2018 due to the purchase of weapons from Russia.
