Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly has announced that in the coming months Canada will send two warships to the Taiwan Strait, the one that separates the island of Taiwan from China, to guard the international waters that China claims as its own. In an interview given during a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Bucharest, Romania, Joly he said that Canada “is committing new military resources” to ensure peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region; she added that she will also send more diplomatic officials.
Taiwan is de facto an independent state but is claimed as part of its territory by China, which considers the strait part of its “internal waters”. According to the United States, allies of Taiwan, a large part of the strait should instead be considered as “international waters” and must therefore be freely passable. Last September a Canadian frigate, the HMCS Vancouver, had already crossed the strait: in August two US ships had also crossed it following the tensions between the United States and China due to the trip to Taiwan by the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
